Shattered
by apriiil
Summary: Something was wrong with the happiest girl in the guild, but Bickslow was the only one who could see how unhappy she truly was, and he was determined to find out the cause. After everything that had happened, Lucy never expected the guild's Seith mage to be the one person able to help and understand her the most. [BixLu Week 2015. Full chapter story]
1. BixLu Week 2015

**Hello everyone, and welcome to BixLu Week 2015!**

Before you ask, yes, I did make an introduction, and no, I didn't think of making one until now. A little weird, I know. I'm really only adding this now, because I wanted to remove the super long introductions from the prologue and the first chapter, and bring them to a more acceptable place (in other words, have them here).

First off, though, we all need to say a huge thank you to _GemNika_ and _LittlePrincessNana_ for being absolutely insane and coming up with this much needed week, because our favourite Seith mage really does need some more love.

* * *

Here are the prompts, all of them (but not in my case) encompassing the first week of November (1st-7th):

 _ **Day 1:** Fix_

 _ **Day 2:** Hidden_

 _ **Day 3:** Home_

 _ **Day 4:** Doctor_

 _ **Day 5:** Vendetta_

 _ **Day 6:** Fluffy_

 _ **Day 7:** Space_

* * *

As you probably know by this point (if you've started reading it, that is), this is going to be a chapter story. Not a series of somewhat connected one-shots, or completely unrelated ones, for that matter, but a chapter story. This means that there are going to be multiple chapters for at least some of the prompts, while others will remain as one chapter.

Being a chapter story, and that it is for a _week_ , I had planned on getting every chapter done by the time this week started so I wouldn't be rushing to try and get the last prompts and chapters finished, but life still got in the way, and I obviously didn't it finished for then.

As I stated in the prologue when I first uploaded it (the information has now been removed), this is set after the Tartaros arc within the anime and the manga. However, with this story, there is no disbandment and therefore no spoilers for the Avatar or Alvarez Empire arcs. If you aren't caught up to the anime (or haven't read up to the end of the Tartaros arc in the manga) at the moment, I do apologise, and like I have with Souls & Spirits, I've tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum.

Although this story is rated M, it's really only for safety. There's a lot of language (duh), and there's a few adult situations, but nothing that would make it, without a doubt, M rated (full on lemons, in other words).

Just a warning, guys.

* * *

Anyway, I think that covers just about everything that was originally covered in the prologue/first chapter introductions.

As always, I hope you all enjoy this story. Don't forget to review, favourite, or follow if you enjoy it! You guys know I love knowing what you think of it all.

\- April


	2. Prologue

A sigh escaped the Seith mage's lips as he sat down at one end of the bar and ordered his usual drink from Mira: something with lots and lots of alcohol in it. When his team weren't taking any jobs, Bickslow didn't do much with this time. His days were spent drinking in the guild, and his nights were spent drinking at the guild, or at various bars and clubs around the town. You'd think he'd have a problem with how much he actually drank, but… he didn't. He was sure of that.

It was just that he needed something to help take his mind off things, and when he spent so much time in the guild, he really needed that.

"Thanks, Mira," he mumbled with a slight nod as he lifted up the short glass, bringing it to his lips and taking a sip of the amber liquid, savouring the warmth that spread throughout as it slid down.

It was like any other day for Bickslow, being in the guild. He drank, laughed, and watched his friends and family. The only problem was that as of late, he'd been spending more time drinking and watching than laughing, and that was because there was something that had been irritating him for weeks; months, even.

But it wasn't really a _thing_ that was bothering it, it was actually a _who_ , and there wasn't a single day that went by where he wasn't thinking about that particular person, and it was borderline driving him absolutely insane.

The problem was that the person who was bothering him so much was none other than Lucy Heartfilia.

Bickslow couldn't really tell anyone that he was so bothered by the Celestial Spirit mage, because if he did, no one would believe what he had to say, or they'd all just assume he was irritated that she was refusing to sleep with him or something. Because that's just the kind of person Bickslow was and everyone in the guild knew what he did with his spare time. He never cared that people knew he slept around – a lot – and he never would care. But everyone would be wrong in assuming he was annoyed by Lucy not sleeping with him, because the simple truth was that he didn't want to (much), and he'd never even tried to, nor would he ever try to.

But, if anything, Bickslow was more annoyed at the rest of the guild than Lucy; especially her team. They saw her every single day of the goddamn year, and yet they couldn't figure out that something was quite clearly wrong with Lucy. No one in the guild could.

No one except Bickslow.

Bickslow was the only one in the entire guild who could see how unhappy she was, and the fact that the ones she held closest and dearest couldn't see through the façade she was working so hard on, was something that irritated Bickslow to no end. No one in the guild could see through it except Bickslow, and even though he'd sat there for so long, watching from across the guild and trying to figure out what it was that had her needing to pretend she was okay, he just couldn't crack it. He couldn't figure out why she wasn't happy, he couldn't figure out why no one could see it, and he couldn't figure out why _he_ of all people could.

Just why was Bickslow the only one who paid enough attention to see that she truly wasn't okay? It wasn't like it was hard to tell, either. Hell, she sat in the guild most of the day, and the moronic fuckers she called her team and her bests friends were almost completely ignoring it.

Bickslow had watched for so long; he'd watched since the guild and the town was rebuilt after the war with Tartaros. Since day one, he'd been able to tell something was wrong, but nearly two months later, he was still the only one who noticed.

He was the only one who noticed that the spark in her dark brown eyes was gone, and that her smile wasn't as bright anymore. Her laugh wasn't as bubbly and it wasn't as contagious, and she was quieter. She rarely yelled at Natsu and Gray for doing something stupid, and she almost never got mad at Bickslow when he had tried to talk to her, usually just with a lame joke that under normal circumstances would have her shaking her head and calling him a weird idiot.

But she hadn't done any of it.

Bickslow was the only one who saw how much she changed once she thought no one was watching; he saw her face completely drop, and the forced smile she held all day dissipated instantly. Because when she thought no one could see, she didn't have to pretend. She didn't have to pretend to be happy when she so clearly was anything but that.

But Bickslow was the only one who saw it, because he was the only one who watched her, and most of the time, he felt like he was the only one who actually cared.

He so desperately wanted to know what was wrong. He wanted to know just what it was that had made the happiest girl in the guild so miserable. The only problem was that he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to know and help her, and it was because they'd only talked on a handful of occasions.

Bickslow knew she'd forgiven him for the things he'd done in the past, and he really loved that. Truly. He loved that Lucy had given him a chance to maybe become her actual friend one day, not that he ever believed he would, but it was nice to know that she didn't hate him.

But they weren't really friends; they were stuck between acquaintances and friends, and honestly, it sucked. It was because he wasn't really her friend that he was unable to do anything. He wasn't able to reach out and tell her that he knows she's not okay, because without a doubt, she'd deny anything of the sort and say she was fine. That was just the kind of person Lucy was; she was strong and she tried to fight all of her battles on her own, as best she could, anyway.

She was never once weak, and Bickslow loathed the day he'd ever considered her that, because all it had taken was one day for him to see that she was so far from being weak that it was almost funny.

But Bickslow wanted to help her. He wanted to help her so much, and it was because he cared about her. Probably more than he should, anyway.

So as he took another sip from the amber liquid, his eyes roved the guild until they saw the familiar blonde hair and he leant back on the barstool, with his back resting against the edge of the counter. Just like he would every other day, he'd watch, and he'd try and see if he could figure her out on his own.

But… he knew that wasn't going to happen, anyway. He was never going to figure out what was wrong unless she opened up to him, and that wasn't going to happen. Ever.

So he watched silently, like he always did. He watched the happiest girl in the guild pretend she was okay by forcing a laugh that almost sounded bitter, and smiling at her friends. But the smile never quite reached her eyes. It never lit up her entire face and the entire room like it usually did, no, like it _should_ , and she never once let her poker face falter when she knew people could see her.

To Bickslow, it looked as if something was missing. It looked like she'd had something taken from her, and like it had left her empty. It was like her entire being was… dull. Almost lifeless. It was almost as if her soul had been affected.

 _Fuck. Souls!_

He'd never once looked at her soul to see if it had in fact been disturbed in any way, but then again, he rarely made the conscious decision to peer into them, either. He'd always felt like it was invading their privacy when he did that, so for the most part, he left it. Bickslow only ever looked if he couldn't contain his curiosity and wanted to see if someone's soul matched their personality, or if he was using his magic in a fight. Which, for the most part, he didn't. He all but avoided using his Figure Eyes unless it was absolutely necessary.

But… he was curious right then.

With a quick glance to those around him at the bar, he turned his attention back to the blonde that had him worried and irritated for the last two months, and he activated his eyes beneath his visor.

Bickslow blinked a few times beneath the metal plate shielding his eyes as he took another slow sip from the glass in his hands, and he tried his best to focus on Lucy's soul. Every other time he had seen it, it had been hard to miss it. Her soul usually stood out; it was as bright as her smile and the aura surrounding her spread warmth to those closest to her. It was full of joy, happiness, and warmth, and it was exactly the kind of soul that matched her personality.

Except, this time, he had to search for it within the spectrum of colours from everyone else's souls. All he could see was a room full of blurred and overlapping auras surrounding each person, and the most beautiful soul he'd seen in his entire life was lost within them all.

Once he did find it, though, he had to check to make sure he was indeed looking at Lucy, and once he was sure he was, he dropped the glass in his hand and let it fall to the floor.

The usually oh so bright orb in the centre of her chest was… not so bright. The aura surrounding her wasn't as large as it usually was, and everything about her soul was faded. It wasn't the bright and shining gold that it usually was, and even from where Bickslow sat on the opposite side of the guild, he could see the faint cracks right on the barely glowing orb.

More so than ever, Bickslow was worried. He'd never once seen her soul as anything but the usually beautiful, glowing globe that sat in her chest, right next to her heart. He'd never seen a soul so… damaged, and it was so much worse just because it was _her_ soul. He wanted to know just what had caused her soul to become like that; he wanted to know what had happened in her life that must have been so terrible to have her pretending to be fine when she so clearly wasn't.

And as Bickslow shook his head lightly, blinking a few times when he deactivated his eyes, he looked down to the glass he'd dropped. The remains of the amber liquid were pooled beneath his feet, between the partly melted ice cubes and the shattered pieces of glass. And as he looked, a frown crossed his face.

 _Shattered_.

Because just like the glass, Lucy's soul had somehow shattered, and he wanted to know why.


	3. (I) Find the Words

_**So it's finally here, and my level of excitement is just way too high right now. Without further ado, welcome to BixLu week.**_

 _ **Thank you to all of those who followed, favourited, reviewed, and even read the prologue. I never even expected half of any of that. I love you guys, seriously.**_

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 1: FIX  
**_ _ **FIND THE WORDS**_

* * *

Lucy looked down at the broken stones that were worn with age as she walked over them. Each rock perfectly joined up with another if a different colour, size, and shape, and together, they made up the busy by day and quiet by night paths of Magnolia.

As she walked, she wasn't really looking at them. She wasn't really looking at anything, really. She was just in a daze, almost, just letting her feet take her home without thinking about it too much.

But she never really thought much those days, anyway. There was only ever one thing at the centre of her thoughts, and that was always Aquarius. Her water-bearing spirit dominated her thoughts, and it hurt. For weeks – months, even – Lucy had been trying so desperately to move on; she wanted to move on from the pain and the loss, but she couldn't. She hadn't felt that bad since her mother had died, and even though she'd been just a child at the time, Lucy could remember exactly how she felt.

She'd felt lonely and like something was missing. She'd felt like there was a hole in her heart that her mother had left, and as silly as it was, like she was broken. It was like her mother's death had broken her. She'd had all of her happiness ripped away in one fell swoop, and for a while, the child version of Lucy had been so set on never seeing that happiness again.

But she had seen that happiness again. Slowly, and over time, Lucy got better. Each day was less painful than the previous, and eventually, that hole in her heart got smaller and smaller until it could get no smaller. And that was okay; Lucy had learned to live with that tiny bit of pain in her heart, because it was for her parents. It was because to that day, she still missed her parents and loved them dearly. She would always love them dearly, and time would never change that.

She would always remember them, and it had been because of that tiny little hole in her heart that never once went away.

But she really was okay with that, because it was a bearable pain. Her friends and family in the guild made it all easier, because they made her happy.

But then with what happened with Tartaros, that tiny little hole had felt like it had consumed her entire heart. There was nothing but pain, and nearly two months after she'd had to sacrifice Aquarius to save her friends and family, that pain wasn't getting any better. If anything, it just got worse.

It wasn't like with her mother's death and then her father's, where each day would be better than the last and she'd be slowly able to get on with her life after accepting their deaths. With Aquarius, it was the opposite. Each day was harder than the last, and Lucy couldn't even remember what it felt like to be happy, and she was beginning to think she would never know what it felt like again.

Losing Aquarius was different to her parents dying, too, so just why the fuck was she feeling so goddamn terrible? Seriously, Lucy wanted to know. More than anything, she wanted to know why she couldn't move on. Aquarius wasn't dead, like her parents, but she was gone. It wasn't the same as her parents, yet she felt worse.

Was it because she'd loved Aquarius ever since she was a child?

Was it because she'd had to choose between the guild's survival and someone she'd known her entire life almost?

Or was it because no one knew about it?

Was the fact that Lucy had been keeping it all to herself, bottled up and letting it get worse the reason as to why she couldn't get better?

Was that the reason she felt like she'd never be happy again, that she felt alone more than ever, and that she felt completely broken once again?

Maybe.

But still, Lucy couldn't tell anyone, regardless of whether that was indeed part of the reason she felt so terrible. The simple truth was that she had no one to tell, and that wasn't entirely because she didn't want to tell anyone; it was just that she didn't think anyone cared enough to hear about her problems.

Besides, her father had always told her that there was always someone out there with problems far greater than her own, so she should be grateful for the life she had.

It was because of that that she'd always tried to fight her own internal battles on her own. She didn't need to bring other people in on her own problems, not when there was the possibility they were dealing with something much worse, and she'd never want to risk losing friendships over something as petty as just needing to talk about her lost spirit.

She was determined to deal with all of her problems on her own, because after all, they were her problems. They were no one else's and no one else should have to carry her burden – her pain.

She would get through it all on her own, no matter what it took.

So silently, she continued her walk home on the silent streets of Magnolia. The slightly broken and worn stones beneath her feet, and the thousands upon millions of stars high above her in the night sky, shining as brightly as the moon in the cloudless sky.

 _Aquarius is up there_ , she thought, suddenly looking up with a sad smile. _Aquarius is up there watching over me, just like mum and dad, like she always has been._

* * *

Another day gone, and another night where she'd cry herself to sleep, or as close to sleep as she was going to get. When no one was around, she didn't have to pretend to be happy, and she could finally let out all of the tears that almost begged to fall throughout her terrible days.

Lucy really did want to deal with all of her problems on her own, but it was hard. No amount of wine, chocolate, or good books could cheer her up, or at least get her to fall asleep without crying.

And Lucy really did know she was kind of avoiding all of her problems by just bottling them up inside her and wishing to sleep it all off, but there was just nothing she could do about that. She had no choice but to bottle it all up and hope that she'd get better and be able to move past everything on her own. She just had to. She had to find a way to deal with her grief from losing Aquarius on her own, because the plain truth was that she had no one to help her. There was no one left for her to cry on, or just even talk to. There was no one left to fix her, because honestly, she just felt broken.

 _Oh, if only my knight in shining armour would come along and piece me back together_ , she thought as a bitter laugh escaped her throat.

She'd been reading more and more over the last couple of months as she retreated into herself. It had been a sort of coping mechanism – a way for her to temporarily pretend her life wasn't almost in shambles, if anything. It's what reading had always been about to Lucy. It was a way to dive into a reality that wasn't her own. She could immerse herself within whatever book she was reading, become the character, and live out the life she was reading about.

She could pretend she was going on a grand adventure to find some magical item to save the world, or she could pretend she was Sleeping Beauty and she needed her true love's kiss to wake her from her slumber. From the knights in shining armour, to the dragons and to the princesses that do a better job of being badass than their not so heroic princes or kings, she could become them and she could drown out her world and temporarily, the pain in her chest would become numb. Or at least just a little bit more bearable.

But she didn't have a knight in shining armour to come and piece her back together. There was no one that could come and fix the broken girl, because there was just no one who cared. No one cared enough about the apparent 'light of the guild' to see that she was hurting, and Lucy knew that. She just had to deal with her problems on her own.

Like her father had always told her.

So after downing the rest of her glass of wine in one large gulp, she placed the crystal glass back down on the table, next to the now empty wine bottle, and shook her head as a slight shiver ran down her spine. She'd read, she'd drank, avoided dealing with her grief in a proper way, and now it was time to go and sit in a near scalding hot bath to let her muscles relax, and finally wind down for the night. As she stood up from her salmon-coloured lounge, moving her book and small cushion out of the way, she reached down to pick up the glass and bottle, and with one in each hand, she turned and headed towards her small kitchen on the other side of the room.

But then there was a knock on the door, and jumping slightly from being startled, she dropped both the glass and bottle, shattering both of them on the hardwood floors just in front of her feet. "Damn it!" she hissed, stepping over the mess she'd made to avoid getting any shards of glass in her bare feet, and went over to the door. She couldn't help but groan when she reached it. It was late and she wasn't in the mood to put up with her team, and she really didn't expect it to be anyone else. No one visited her apart from her team, and it was only occasionally they even bothered with using the door – Natsu mostly opting for the window above her bed.

But maybe, just maybe, Lucy had managed to get through to the idiotic Dragon Slayer about using the door – especially after 9PM – and it was him at the door.

 _Of course it's Natsu_ , she told herself. _Who the hell else is going to visit?_

Convinced that it was just her best friend and namesake of her team, she pulled the door open rather hastily with a roll of her eyes. "Natsu, I'm not—" she groaned, ready to tell Natsu that she wasn't in the mood to play any weird board games or go out on a job in the middle of the night, except when she finally saw who it was standing outside her apartment, she stopped. "Bickslow?"

Lucy just stood in her doorway in shock. She'd been expecting Natsu – maybe even Gray or Erza – to be the one outside her door given that it was the near middle of the night, but it wasn't Natsu. It wasn't anyone on her team, because it was Bickslow. And for the life of her, Lucy couldn't think of a reason as to why he was there.

"What are you doing here?" she asked quietly, her brow becoming creased as she tried to search her brain for a possible explanation for the visit.

"Uh… well…" he mumbled as he lifted a hand to sheepishly rub the back of his covered neck. The truth was that he didn't quite know what he was doing there, and he hadn't really known he'd been going to Lucy's apartment until he'd seen her building right in front of him. The worst part was that he couldn't even say he'd just walked past his street and was just in the neighbourhood, because his own house was on the opposite side of the town.

Bickslow had been in an almost daze of sorts all afternoon. Seeing Lucy's soul so damaged and broken had completely devastated him. He so desperately wanted to know why it was like that, and why Lucy was so hurt. He wanted to know just what had happened.

But there was a part of him that could see he'd probably never be able to know, because to Lucy, he wasn't someone who could ever care about her, or have an interest in her life, but the simple truth was that Bickslow cared almost too much about her. She just didn't know it, and he didn't really want her to know it.

He'd always been someone who watches from the edge, because he'd always been a sort of outsider. After being in the guild since he was a teenager, he was still an outsider, just like the rest of his team, and hell, even Laxus most of the time. None of that was the guild's fault though, because Bickslow and his team had always preferred it that way. None of them were particularly good with people, and they all lacked social skills, surprisingly, and it wasn't entirely by choice. Most of it was just because they'd always had a lack of trust from the guild and everyone else around them, and it was because of their magic, mostly.

Evergreen had always been scared of turning people to stone with her eyes, so she avoided people growing up. Freed had lived a life of isolation because no one really liked the boy who could turn himself into a demonic creature, and Bickslow just didn't like talking all that much. And it was odd, really, because he was known as being the loud and obnoxious, arrogant and self-conceited, and honestly a little perverted member of the Thunder God Tribe. He was known for his strange personality and his abundance of confidence, but the truth was that Bickslow wasn't confident at all. He had his insecurities and he had his flaws, and more importantly, he had his wariness. He was surprisingly shy, and he'd always been like that. He didn't trust people, and it was because people didn't trust him, and it was something he'd grown up with. His entire life had been one that was void of trust, and even with his team – his family and best friends – he didn't have that trust. With his team, it was more of an understanding than anything. It was an understanding that they all had their issues and they were all just that little bit broken on the inside, and more than anything, that they all had their reasons to not trust people entirely, or more importantly, people not trust them.

Or so they thought, anyway.

It was because of this that Bickslow had his walls. He had his walls that he liked to hide behind, and it was the same for both Evergreen and Freed. Evergreen had her glasses, Freed had his runes, and Bickslow had his visor.

But for Bickslow, it wasn't just his visor, but it was also his persona. His entire persona was something he hid behind, because if he acted like that loud and obnoxious, arrogant and self-conceited moron, then no one would be able to tell just how, well, sensitive he really was. His lack of trust in people was more of a fear. It was a fear of being judged and hurt more than he already had been in his entire life.

He was always careful about what he told people or showed them, because to Bickslow, there was a very high possibility of it backfiring right in his face. Everything was built up around him to protect him and keep people from getting too close, because it was like every time he'd let someone in, they'd always leave – whether it be because of Bickslow's magic which had always been a problem for everyone who knew about it, or because they just didn't want to be around Bickslow – and each time, he'd just retreat even further into himself and he fortified his walls and defences even more.

But the more he did so, the more he'd begun to become the person that he'd built. It had become more than just a defence mechanism for coping with everything and keeping everyone out – it had just become so much more.

It wasn't like Bickslow liked that, though. He hated that person. He hated having to constantly hide behind those walls – his jokes, pranks, self-confidence, and visor – and pretend to be someone that he truly wasn't. He hated that he even had to hide, but he just couldn't do anything else, because of the almost crippling fear that as soon as he went out without all of his walls up, he'd just be emotionally destroyed. He'd had enough of that in his life that he just never wanted to let anyone in again. The walls made sure of that.

The person that everyone saw was someone that didn't let people in anyway – they were rude, they were conceited, cocky, brash, arrogant, absolutely insane (though, Bickslow had always been that), and just an overall jackass. They couldn't hold any longstanding relationships, because they chose not to. The problem was that Bickslow was essentially hiding in plain sight, because there were many things about his public-persona that mirrored the person that hid behind everything. It was all just for different reasons.

Bickslow had just reached the point where he'd rather be alone than let anyone get close enough to see what he was really like, because he was scared of getting hurt. And honestly, he was fine with that. He was fine with just his beloved flying babies, and his team, because they were his family. He was completely fine with not ever trusting anyone enough to take down his walls.

As he stood there in front of Lucy, he could feel those same walls crumbling, and he began to panic. Out of everyone in the entire world, Lucy was the one person that he had to make sure didn't see past his walls. He couldn't have everything he'd worked so hard on building and keeping up, just falling to nothing. He couldn't even come close to letting that happen, because he just couldn't be hurt anymore.

But the Bickslow that Lucy knew didn't outwardly care about people. He joked, he pranked, and he acted like the conceited asshole that people had come to expect him to be. The Bickslow that Lucy knew didn't have the capacity to care about those around him and be worried about them, let alone notice when something is wrong.

So how was Bickslow supposed to help Lucy when it just wouldn't make sense? The truth was that he didn't think he could, unless he let his walls down. And even though there was a small part of him that wanted to let them down – because even when Lucy would be the one to hurt him the most, he could see that she'd also be the one to understand the real him the most – the large majority of him just didn't want to risk opening himself up, and there was just no way he could justify wanting to help Lucy unless he did so.

And that hurt, honestly. Bickslow so desperately wanted to help her, just because it was _her_ , but he wouldn't be able to. Even just standing there in front of her and knowing that she was hurting because of something was crushing him, but there wasn't a single thing he could do. There wasn't a single thing he could do, apart from wait and hope that someone on her team or in her circle of friends opens their fucking eyes to see that there's something wrong with the arguably happiest girl in the guild, and that there has been for months.

The truth was that Bickslow just cared about Lucy too much, but he was still too scared to actually help her like he wanted to.

So after a few moments, the blinking blonde just waiting for him to explain why he was there, he looked back up from where he'd been staring at the ground with his brow furrowed under his visor, and he flashed a wide grin. Anything to make himself appear normal. "You know what? It doesn't matter," he lied before he turned to the side, ready to disappear down the stairs he'd only just come up. "Sorry to disturb you so late. I'll see you around, Lucy."

"Oh… okay…" she said, surprised, watching as Bickslow turned on his heels to walk around the bannister to head down the stairs. "Well… goodnight then." Lucy was confused as she stood there in her open door. Not only did she not understand why Bickslow had come to her apartment in the near middle of the night – obviously there was a reason, or so she thought – but she didn't understand why he'd decided it wasn't worth it, whatever _it_ was.

But then just as she was about to finally close the door when Bickslow started walking down the stairs, he stopped and turned back back around. "Actually, no." Bickslow couldn't leave it like that. No matter how much he wanted to, he just couldn't leave knowing that something was wrong – that Lucy was hurting. If it was anyone else, he'd leave; he'd leave with his walls up high without a single thought, but because it was Lucy, he couldn't. It hurt him too much to just know that she was in pain, and he just so desperately wanted to know why. "I wanted to talk to you about something," he admitted, coming to stand in front of her once again open door.

Lucy nodded as she stepped to the side and put her back up against the wood of the door while lifting an arm, gesturing to the inside of her apartment. "Sure," she said, forcing the faintest of smiles. "Did you want to come in?"

"Yeah, please," Bickslow mumbled before he followed Lucy into her own home.

Fuck his walls. Lucy being happy again was more important, so he'd just have to make sure he kept those walls up and Lucy out.

As much as he could, anyway.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Lucy asked as she gently closed the door behind her, turning around to see Bickslow come to a halt in the middle of her living room, his arms folded. She was confused, but also intrigued. The almost elusive Seith mage was standing in her very home, and she didn't entirely know why.

It was Bickslow – they didn't talk, but he wanted to talk to her about something, and Lucy just couldn't think of what that something could be. Was it about a job? Did he require her assistance with something? Perhaps he needed one of her spirits for a particular task? That wouldn't be a problem though, because quite often Lucy had helped other members of the guild with small jobs here and there that where her spirits could be of beneficial use to them. She had no problem with helping her friends and family.

But a quick glance to clock on the wall that ticked away with each passing second had her throwing that possible explanation out the open window above her bed. No one in their right might would go to someone's house at eleven o'clock at night to talk about a job – not even Bickslow was that insane, and the man was known for being a little eccentric.

So what could it possibly be?

Lucy looked up again when she crouched down just in front of the broken wine bottle and crystal glass, careful not to get any of the miniscule shards in her bare feet. Bickslow was still just standing there in silence, slowly looking around her apartment – it felt odd to him, being in Lucy's apartment. He'd always pictured it under different circumstances, even though he'd known those circumstances would never come to fruition. But still, being there in her apartment right then just felt odd, because if anything, he'd never wanted to have to find out what had happened in her life to make her hurt.

Then again, he'd never expected anything so horrible to happen, whatever it was.

But the fact remained that Bickslow had a lack of social skills, and as Lucy quietly and slowly picked up the shards of broken glass, he desperately racked his brain for the right words. Did the right words even exist? Because if they did, Bickslow was having a hard time finding them. But maybe it was because he'd never been particularly good when it came to people. His lack of social skills extended to him having a lack of _people_ skills, because frankly, he just didn't care all that much about them. Of course, it had a lot to do with the fact that he was terrible with words, and he'd always been like that.

It was his inability to talk to people that had him struggling to find the words he needed to use, because not only was he scared of Lucy seeing past his vast defences, but he was scared of making things worse for her by saying the wrong thing. Making things worse was the last thing he wanted to do, because in the scenario that Lucy got even more hurt – by him, of all people and things – then it would actually crush him; body _and_ soul.

"Damn it," Lucy hissed suddenly, and Bickslow's attention was brought to the blonde as she slowly stood up. The clatter of the shards of glass she'd been picking up falling to the ground was heard, and even from where Bickslow stood, he could see the blood begin to trickle out from her closed fist, one hand clutching the other, and slowly dripping down her arm. "Give me a second," she muttered, turning on her heels and dashing off to the bathroom through the turquoise curtains.

Her hand stung as she placed it under the cold water from the faucet, the clear water tinged with pink as it swirled around the basin and down the drain. It was only then did she realise that picking up broken pieces of glass with her bare hands was a terrible idea. There were plenty of other things she could have done to avoid getting a large gash across the middle of her left hand – from just below her pointer finger to the lower right portion of her palm – but alas, it wasn't even the stupidest thing she'd done in the last two months following the events of the war with Tartaros. With her mind otherwise occupied, Lucy had quite often found herself getting injured, all because she was finding it hard to keep her focus.

The worst part though – not that being injured wasn't terrible in itself – was that Lucy had found herself wondering if all of the times she'd hurt herself were subconsciously on purpose. Whether something small like slicing her hand on a broken piece of glass, or coming home from a job beaten, battered, and bruised (which wasn't all that avoidable being on Team Natsu), it was hard to ignore the fact that however big or small the injury was, it almost always numbed the pain she felt in her chest. The physical pain made the emotional pain that she was constantly in just that little bit more bearable, and as sadistic as it was, she revelled in those moments.

For however short those moments were, Lucy enjoyed being able to focus on something other than the pain she felt because of Aquarius that just got worse with every passing day.

As she watched her blood mix with the water and run down the drain, Aquarius was one of the things at the back of her mind, and even though her hand hurt like hell from the constant downbeat of the near icy water from the weather that got chillier with each passing day, she'd put up with it – hell, she'd enjoy it – because it wasn't pain she had because of her lost spirit.

With her free hand, she reached for the tap and quickly turned it off. As the blood already started to run down her hand and drip into the wet basin, she cursed under her breath and pulled a hand towel from the counter just beside her, and she dabbed it over the large cut a few times before folding it around her hand to try and keep some pressure on it until she could bandage it properly. A quick rummage around in her cabinets with her free hand to find her medical supplies, and then Lucy was on her way out to her living room once again with the first-aid box balanced on her uninjured hand.

She avoided the pile of glass as she made her way over her to her sofa, and quickly, she sat down on the edge and dropped the box to the coffee table just in front of her. "You know," she mumbled, lifting up the stained towel from her hand before dabbing it back over her wound again. "Most people actually talk when they say they want to."

"I know," Bickslow sighed as he once again lifted a hand, rubbing the nape of his neck as he turned around again again slowly, continuing to pace the small area just in front of one of the bookshelves. "I just… I don't… know…" he muttered, trailing off.

Truthfully, Bickslow knew that most people actually talked when they did in fact say they had something to talk about, despite having both a lack of desire and ability to hold an actual conversation. It was just that, for the life of him, he didn't know where to begin.

 _Damn it! Find the fucking words already!_

His mind was shouting at him, and it only got louder and more annoying the longer he actually tried to find those words, and it was driving him insane.

 _Find the words or just leave._

But he couldn't leave. Even though that nagging voice inside his head was almost begging him to leave, to end the torture he was almost inflicting on himself just by standing there, he _wouldn't_ leave. He'd come that far. Lucy was right in front of him, and even in that very moment, she was in pain, but she wasn't letting it show. She never let how much she was hurting show.

Bickslow still saw it though. He could see through the walls _she_ put up on a daily basis, whenever anyone was around her, and it was that alone that made Bickslow realise he couldn't and wouldn't leave. It was because he could see that she was hurting, even when she thought he couldn't, and it was because he hated seeing her in pain that he would stay. He would stay because he couldn't stand another day of watching Lucy pretend that nothing was wrong, because the longer he'd watched, the more it had hurt him. He couldn't do that anymore.

He just had to find out what it was, and more than anything, he hoped that she'd tell him what it was that had happened, because Bickslow so desperately wanted to be able to help her.

Because when it came to Lucy, he just cared too damn much. More than he'd ever admit to anyone – especially to Lucy.

But Bickslow still had to find the right words. He had to keep his own walls up, and somehow find a way to help Lucy see that he cared without letting those walls down.

"You seem troubled by something."

He looked up then as he stopped his aimless pacing and he could feel the panic rise within him again. Was he troubled? Hell fucking yes. But had he meant for Lucy to see that? Hell fucking _no_. That's what his walls were for; they were there to stop people from seeing how he really felt, and even though it was Lucy being hurt that was troubling him then, the concept still applied.

"What?" he asked quickly. "No, I…" Again, he couldn't even find the words to lie, and by that point it was already beginning to frustrate him.

That wasn't the worst part though. The worst part was that Lucy was once again caring about someone else instead of dealing with her own problems. She'd always done that, and as much as Bickslow loved that about her, he also hated it. She was constantly putting others before herself, but Bickslow didn't know it was because of what she'd grown up being told. He didn't know she'd grown up with a father who closed himself off from his daughter after her mother's death, and he didn't know that she'd essentially been taught to keep everything bottled up, to let it grow and form into something much more horrible.

Bickslow didn't know that she'd been hurting herself for years, because of something her father had once said.

But when he looked up again to see just what Lucy was doing, he sighed as a frown turned his lips, before he turned once again to quickly cross over to the lounge and crouch down in front of her. "Here, let me," he mumbled, gently prying the bandages and gauze from her hands as she struggled to do it all herself.

"No, Bickslow," she said as she tried to pull back on them. She could do it herself. She could do everything herself. "I can—"

"Lucy, please," he interrupted. "Let me help."

There was a moment where Lucy just continued to stare into the darkness beyond Bickslow's visor as she decided whether it was worth arguing over it. It was just a bandage after all. "Fine," she said quietly as he finally gave in, letting Bickslow take everything she still tried to hold on to.

Quietly, he went about dressing the wound, starting with dabbing at the cut with the towel again before reaching for one of the gauze pads and folding it over to place it across the large gash. At the short huff of a laugh came from Lucy, he lifted his eyes slightly from where they were fixed on her hand that rest in his own with his thumb holding the gauze down.

"What?" he asked quietly, his brow furrowing under his visor as he tried to think of something that could possibly be funny right then, even if it was the faintest of laughs.

"I was just thinking that you have better nails than I do," she replied as she continued to stare at Bickslow's almost perfectly manicured hands, her eyebrows arched in curiosity.

The black matte polish was something she'd seen before on Bickslow's nails, and it was something that she'd always seen as a little odd. But then again, Bickslow was a little odd as a person, and in a way, something like having painted nails actually suited him.

But even though it was a little strange, in that moment, Lucy couldn't get over the fact that Bickslow quite possibly did have better nails than she did. Well, okay, maybe she was over exaggerating, but compared to the rest of the males in the guild… yeah, they were pretty damn nice. And his hands were just something else entirely! Even just against the back of her hand, they were so soft, and in comparison to Natsu or Gray's (or even Erza's) hands that were always dry and chapped, it was a welcome change.

 _Damn it, Lucy! Get yourself together! They're just hands._

"Perks of being someone who doesn't do the whole physical fighting thing," Bickslow shrugged. It wasn't the first time he'd had his nails commented on, and it was something he just didn't care about. So what if he was a guy who liked having his nails painted? It just didn't matter, and if anything, it was the one thing that he really did not care about what people thought of it.

But he wasn't there to talk about whether he had better nails than Lucy.

Clearing his throat as he slowly wound the bandage around her hand, he looked up again and quietly, he asked, "Are you… okay?" It was the simplest of questions, but he honestly just had no idea where to start. He already knew the answer to that question, but still, if anything, it seemed like a reasonable place to begin. It didn't help that it was the only thing he could think of, either.

"I'm fine," she said softly. "It's just a cut. I'll get Wendy to look at it in the morning."

"That's not what I meant."

She raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow questioningly as she once again looked into the slats of the metal visor. If not about her wound, then what on Earthland did he mean? "Then what?" Lucy asked.

"I just…" he sighed as he tore a small piece of tape from the roll that had been sitting on the table. With one hand holding the bandage in place, Bickslow shrugged again as he gently taped the end down, making sure it was secure. "I know you're not okay," he mumbled.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I know that you're not happy." And there it was, out in the open. He couldn't have beaten around it if he wanted to, because it needed to be said, and he didn't want to avoid it any longer.

Lucy sat up then as she pulled her hand from Bickslow's, and she couldn't help but turn her gaze elsewhere. Even with his visor, Lucy couldn't meet his eyes. "I… I don't know what you're talking about," she muttered as she quickly rose to her feet. "Why in the world wouldn't I be happy?"

He took a step back when she started to quickly gather up the spare bandages, tape, and gauze pads, and put them back in the small box. "That's the thing. I don't know why you're not, and it's why I wanted to talk to you."

"Well, this conversation is over," she scoffed, not bothering to look over her shoulder as she returned to the bathroom to put everything away. "I am happy," she said with a slight shrug when she came back out and forcing a small smile. "So really, there's nothing to talk about. I don't know what you saw or heard—"

"Lucy," he cut her off as he slowly walked around the lounge, his arms folded across his chest as he did so. "I've watched you pretend to be happy for two months," he said softly. Bickslow was internally cursing himself then. He was having to tear down his walls himself just that little bit just to get through to her, and it was all because she was trying to deny it She was denying that anything was wrong without a second though and it was hurting Bickslow to see her do that, especially up close. "And don't say that you haven't been."

As strange as it was, Lucy was beginning to worry. She was so certain that no one knew – that no one could _see_. Had she slipped up while at the guild? Surely not. Lucy was so sure that she'd been careful. She'd smiled when she'd needed to, laughed when need be, and more importantly, she'd acted like there was nothing wrong. All of it was because she didn't think anyone knew, and that no one cared.

But that entire time, Bickslow had known. Out of everyone in the entire guild, it had been Bickslow who had seen through everything and Lucy didn't know how or why. For whatever reason, though, Lucy still couldn't admit to Bickslow what he already knew. She knew it wasn't denial, but she didn't know what it was.

So Lucy shook her head as she stepped past Bickslow and quickly went over to her door, once again avoiding the glass pile on the floor. "Like I said, I don't know what you think you saw, because I haven't been pretending," she insisted, though she didn't look up. She couldn't, because she knew her eyes would give it away. "I think you should leave now, though…" Lucy pulled her door open and stood by it, her head down still. "It's late, and I don't particularly want to keep arguing over whether or not I'm actually happy, because I am. I'm fine."

And Bickslow knew he'd pushed it too far then. Lucy obviously didn't want to talk about whatever it was that had happened – or maybe she did, and she just didn't want to talk to _him_ about it. Because in his head, that made sense. He was nothing to Lucy. He was just a friend – no, not even. He was just someone who was in the same guild, and he had to remember that.

He should have seen it coming, really.

But it didn't matter. He tried, and he wasn't going to force it out of her if she just didn't want to say anything.

"Alright, fine, I'll leave," he said quietly as he turned and headed back to the door. "But seriously, I know what I saw, okay? And if you ever want to like, talk about anything, I'll liste—"

"I really don't need to," Lucy muttered.

Bickslow shrugged. "I'm just saying."

"Right," she said, nodding as she slowly began to push the door closed. "Well, good night, Bickslow."

And before Bickslow could even say anything back, she'd gently closed the door and Bickslow was left there in front it, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head through the fabric once again. It wasn't how he'd ever pictured his night going at all – from showing up at her apartment in the first place, to standing outside her door and wondering just what he was supposed to do.

He wanted to help her. He needed to help her, even. But he couldn't, because she wasn't letting him, and there was a part of him that really had seen it all coming. He knew he shouldn't have expected Lucy to just open up to him without a second thought on the matter, because he just wasn't that type of person. Of course, it didn't help that she'd been dealing with it all on her own for the past two months.

But still, he didn't want her to deal with it on her own, and as sad as it was, Bickslow honestly didn't think he'd be able to sit in the guild another day and watch her pretend to be happy. He couldn't help her, but he couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

So what exactly was he supposed to do? Because honestly, Bickslow just had no idea.

* * *

 _ **So if you haven't figured it out, Fix and Hidden (Day 1 and 2) are a little interlaced. I told you it would happen, so please don't hate me for it, hehe. The main focus will change as the story progresses, but I can't really say much else about that. You'll just have to wait and see for that to happen.**_

 _ **I hope you guys liked this, and please, review/favourite/follow, if you ever feel inclined to, that is! I would absolutely love to know what you guys think, whether you love it or hate it or something else entirely.**_

 _ **I shall see you all tomorrow for the next chapter!**_

 _ **\- April**_


	4. (I) An Unlikely Friend

**A/Ns at the bottom, if you care to read. ;)**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 2: FIX**_  
 _ **AN UNLIKELY FRIEND**_

* * *

Lucy stared at the door for what felt like an eternity as she anxiously pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. After Bickslow had left, she'd stared at her ceiling in the dark for hours. She couldn't sleep, not when her mind wouldn't shut off. All she could think about was her conversation with Bickslow, and the fact that out of everyone in the entire guild, he'd been the one to see through everything.

And she wanted to know how.

Why was it Bickslow? Why wasn't it someone like Natsu? Or Erza? Or Gray? Or even Levy or Mira? Why had someone she rarely spoke to been able to notice she wasn't happy, when the ones she was closest to were completely oblivious to it?

She needed to know why it had been Bickslow, and it was why she presently found herself standing outside his door at three o'clock in the morning – address courtesy of Loke, much to his confusion. All she could do was stare at it as she held her cardigan wrapped tightly around her body, her hands clutching her arms. It was so late, and she knew she should at least wait until the morning to talk to Bickslow, but… she couldn't. She couldn't wait to find out just how Bickslow had found out.

So with a sigh, she lifted one of her hands to quickly rap her knuckles on the wood of the door. As soon as she'd done so, she began to panic again, and once again, she wasn't entirely sure why.

Maybe Bickslow would be mad at her for waking him up at such a late hour, or maybe she'd be interrupting him with… someone. No one really knew much about his personal life – maybe he had a girlfriend? Hell, even a _boyfriend?_ Or maybe just… _someone_. No one knew, because no one really knew anything about him. For whatever reason, when it came to the Raijinshuu, no one else in the guild knew much about them.

But as the fleeting thought about leaving – hoping that he didn't hear his door – crossed her mind and she was just about to turn on her heels and quietly bound down the hall to the stairs, the door opened. Bickslow had stood there seemingly bored by the late night visitor, a hand resting on the handle, until he realised just who had come knocking on his door in the first place.

He raised an eyebrow at the blonde outside his door. "It's three o'clock in the morning," he stated, skipping a greeting entirely.

"I know it is," she looked down slightly as she felt a warmth spread on her face. A visorless and shirtless Bickslow was not what she expected to be seeing, but then again, she probably had woken him up. "And I'm sorry for waking you—"

"I wasn't asleep," he interrupted. The truth was that much like Lucy, he couldn't sleep. He'd been too busy thinking of what to do _about_ Lucy. He couldn't ignore it, but he couldn't fix it, and he'd unintentionally made things worse for himself by trying to get involved.

"O-oh…" Lucy stammered as she raised her eyes slightly. "Well, I'm still sorry for coming by so late… but I just wanted to ask how it was you knew," she mumbled.

"Knew what?"

"Knew that I wasn't… happy. You know, assuming I wasn't, because I'm not saying that I'm not happy." Because for whatever reason, Lucy just still couldn't bring herself to admitting it yet, even though Bickslow already knew it.

Bickslow was suddenly aware that he was without his visor then, and now that he knew where the conversation was going, he couldn't go without it. It was part of his walls that were constantly up, yet for not the first time that day, he could feel them all slipping away with Lucy. Even with just a few words being shared between them, there was a small part of him that really did want to tear them down, but he was still scared. He was always afraid of what could possibly happen when he did that, and that's what had him quickly turning and heading back into his apartment in search for his visor without actually answering the question.

When he left, Lucy stood motionless and confused in the doorway for just a short moment before she cautiously moved forward. The door was left open, so surely he was inviting her in, right?

She hoped so, anyway.

As Bickslow came back out into his living room, he shrugged his sweater on over his head and lazily pushed the sleeves up before going back over to the door. "I um… I don't know," he mumbled as he closed the door when Lucy took another few steps into the room. "You were just different one day."

"Right…" Lucy mumbled, quickly glancing at her surroundings before back to Bickslow standing with his back against a wall and his arms folded.

She was still confused. She'd already established that Bickslow had known for a while, if not the entire time, but she didn't know _how_. What was it that _she'd_ done to give it away? Was it something small that only someone who was paying attention would notice, or something huge that everyone else had missed because they just didn't care?

"But… how?" she asked quietly, her brows knitting together slightly as she looked down to the ground. "How was I… different?"

Bickslow pushed himself up from the wall then with a slight shrug. "You just were," he said. _Your smile wasn't genuine, your laugh wasn't as bright, and then not to mention your entire soul issue, plus a hundred other miniscule things._ There was no way in hell Bickslow could say that. "You just didn't seem happy, and you still don't."

Lucy was growing frustrated, but she knew it wasn't worth it. She felt as if Bickslow was purposely avoiding answering the question like she wanted it to be, but she didn't want to push it. Truthfully, though, she could see that it didn't matter. The point was that he knew, and he really had quite possibly known the _entire_ time.

But there was another issue that remained. It was that Bickslow had actually confronted her about it, and it was almost as if he… cared. And out of everyone, he was one of the last people she suspected of ever caring.

So as he lifted himself to sit on his kitchen counter on the far side of the room and idly sip away at something Lucy could only assume was alcohol of some sort, she slowly navigated past the lounge and dining table to stand at the end of the island. Looking down at the ground, she once again wrapped her arms around herself, and quietly, she asked, "Why do you care?"

 _Because I love you._

He couldn't say that, even though it was the truth. It was why he'd been able to tell that something was wrong, because each and every day he was in the guild, he wasn't seeing the same Lucy he was in love with; only a shell of that same girl. It was why it hurt Bickslow so much to see her like that, because seeing someone you love hurting when you can't do a single thing about it is horrible. It was why he wanted to help her, because he really couldn't stand to see her like that any longer.

But he didn't know how to, and it didn't help that she wasn't letting him. But he'd expected that, truly. That's just what happens when you love someone you can never have, and Bickslow had accepted that he'd never have Lucy. She'd never love him back and he'd always known that, and as sad as it was for Bickslow, he was strangely fine with that.

Even if she did ever love him back, they just wouldn't work. He was Bickslow, and she was Lucy. Nothing about them would make sense and it just wouldn't work in any world, universe, or scenario. It's why he was fine with it.

It wasn't like Bickslow wanted to be in love with her either, because he almost _hated_ that he was. He hadn't wanted to fall in love with her, but then one day, he realised he had. It was why he so desperately needed to make sure he kept all of his walls up around her. He couldn't let her know just how much he cared, because it just wasn't fair.

"Because I do," he said instead as he took another sip from the glass. "Am I not allowed to care about people in my guild?"

"N-no, I just…" Lucy realised it was a fair question, and in a sense, it was a plausible explanation. But there was just a tiny part of her that still felt like he was purposely avoiding answering it properly again. It was almost as if he was keeping the actual reason from her, because as reasonable as it was for it to be because they were in the same guild, Lucy didn't think that was the real reason, but she knew there was one. There had to be a reason for Bickslow caring, because no one did anything without a reason.

Well, that's just what Lucy thought.

So with a sigh, she said, "I just don't understand. None of this makes sense."

He arched a brow in confusion. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I mean, you, supposedly caring, and just you in general, because I feel as if you're purposely avoiding not telling me how you figured it out—"

"Lucy—"

"—and how you managed to see through everything at the guild in the first place, because I tried so hard to make sure that no one would know anything had changed, but somehow you knew, and I can't help but hate the fact that you do—"

Bickslow put his glass down on the bench gently and hopped down from the counter. "Lucy, stop—" He could see that with each second, Lucy was getting more and more agitated. But once again, his words went ignored as she continued to ramble – something he'd never seen or known her to ever do.

"—because I just wanted to deal with it all on my own because that's what I felt like I had to do because no one—" But that time, Lucy was actually silenced, and it wasn't of her own accord. Rather, it was because Bickslow had covered her mouth with his hand, and all she could do was blink up at him while inwardly thanking him from stopping her rambling that she hadn't seen coming.

"I know you tried to make it seem like you're fine, I really do," he said quietly after a short moment, mostly to give Lucy time to slightly calm down, though he didn't move his hand. If anything, he just needed to make sure she'd stay quiet and listen. "And you did a really good job of doing so, but whatever it is that happened that has you like this… you don't have to deal with it by yourself. That's what the guild is for, remember?"

After a long moment where she just stared through the slats in Bickslow's visor to the darkness beneath it, she nodded. She really had always known that she'd been making it worse for herself by not talking about it, but Lucy had truly believed no one cared enough to listen. She'd been worried about what people would think of her if she had to talk about it all with someone, just because of what her father had told her all those years ago. She'd never once forgotten his words.

But Bickslow was right: that's what the guild was for. Fairy Tail was a family to those who didn't have their own. It was a home for those without one, and when someone was in trouble or anything, there was always someone else to help them with whatever it was they needed help with.

"I meant what I said earlier," Bickslow continued. "If you decide you want to talk, I'll listen. Or, you can tell someone else. Someone will always be there listen." He had to at least remind her that there were other people she could talk to, even though he knew he wouldn't even come close to being one of the people he would willingly talk to about whatever it was she was going through.

But he did think it would be nice to be that person. He really did want to be the one to help her with her problems, no matter how big or small they were, even though he didn't know if it was possible. If it came down to it, though, he'd try his hardest to help Lucy. If anything, just to be able to see her smile again and actually mean it.

And as they both just stood there, Lucy couldn't help but think of what the actual reason for Bickslow caring was. She knew he wasn't going to tell her what it was – not yet, anyway – but she could wonder, and she could wonder about why Bickslow was so set on her not dealing with it on her own for any longer.

But she could wonder all she wanted, because she suddenly realised she couldn't deal with it on her own any longer. She needed to tell someone about it, because if anything, she was scared of how much worse things could get. She didn't want to know what it would be like to actually hit rock-bottom, where she felt like things would never get better at all and she was to live a life full of misery and loneliness, even in her last days. She knew things were bad, and she'd made them that bad for herself by bottling it all up and keeping it from everyone, but she also knew she was spiralling towards her fear at an incredible rate.

As she stood there, Lucy suddenly wasn't afraid to admit that she needed help. She needed someone to keep her from reaching her absolute worst, because as bad as it was, she wasn't at her outright worst. She needed someone to talk to, to let it all out and hope that it would help her move on from it, but Lucy didn't know _who_ to talk to. It wasn't a matter of no one being there for her due to a lack of empathy and sympathy, because thanks to Bickslow, she knew it was silly to think like that. If her team had known, they'd be supporting her and trying their best to help her get over losing Aquarius, because they were her best friends and they'd become her family. But Lucy had made a point of keeping her friends in the dark, so she really did have no one else to blame but herself for the way things had turned out.

But for Lucy, it was almost as if she didn't want to talk to her team about it. She didn't want to talk to Levy, or even Mira or Cana for that matter. The longer she stood there – even though it was only a few drawn out seconds, it felt like an eternity – the more Lucy realised that she knew exactly who to talk to. It wasn't her team, her friends, or her family. No, it was actually Bickslow.

Lucy didn't entirely know why she thought Bickslow would be the right one to talk to about everything, but she couldn't help but really want to. Bickslow had offered to listen – to be the one that she talk to – so why wouldn't it be a good idea? Right then, Lucy just couldn't think of a reason.

So lifting her own hands to push Bickslow's away from where it had remained over her mouth, Lucy silently looked up to the depths beneath the metal visor, and as almost a whisper, she asked, "Will you listen… now?"

Because at 3AM, Lucy wanted to do nothing else but talk about her feelings, and with Bickslow of all people.

But the time didn't matter to Bickslow at all. All that mattered was that Lucy wanted to talk – hopefully about what it was that had made her so miserable in the first place – and she wanted to talk to _him_. With the corners of his mouth pulling up into the slightest of smiles, he quietly said, "Gladly."

As Lucy nodded, the barest of sighs of relief escaping, Bickslow turned around and crossed the room to take a seat on the corner of the lounge with one leg tucked under himself as he brought his other knee up. "Come, sit," he said while patting the spot just next to him.

Once Lucy had taken a seat near the other corner of the lounge, she remained silent for a few moments as she stared down to her folded hands in her lap. Bickslow didn't mind the silence, because he got the feeling that whatever it was she needed to say was going to be difficult to talk about it. From all of her rambling, he knew that no one else in the entire world knew, apart from her, but he was going to know what it was. And even though he'd never once been able to stop worrying about what it was that had made her so miserable, he'd come to realise that he was glad she was willing to talk about it with him. There were so many other people that would make better conversation partners than him – who'd probably be able to actually help her a whole lot more than he could, too – but she wasn't telling anyone else. She was sitting on his lounge in his apartment at three o'clock in the morning, and she was talking to _him_.

When she took a steadying breath, Bickslow looked up and to the blonde. "Have you ever lost someone, Bickslow?" she asked quietly, still looking at her hands in her lap.

"Yes," he replied. It wasn't an answer he had to think about, not when the reason he was the way he was that day was because he'd lost too many people in his life.

"So you know what it feels like?" she whispered, nodding thoughtfully to herself. "You know that it feels like you're completely alone in the world, and that you almost feel as if your life is missing something, and that you can't help but think it can never get any better?"

"Yes."

Lucy nodded again. She needed to know that Bickslow would understand how she felt – at least a little bit, anyway. She didn't expect anyone to ever know how she truly felt then. "Have you ever felt…" she paused to close her eyes when she could feel them begin to sting, just from the thought of actually admitting how she really felt – to herself, as well as Bickslow. She wasn't going to cry. Not there. "Broken?" she whispered. It was a long shot, because she honestly didn't believe anyone she knew to have ever felt like she did then. She still had to ask though.

And that time, Bickslow couldn't answer straight away. It wasn't as if he hadn't, because the truth was that he had felt just a little bit broken before, like he almost always did. But that's what his walls were for, and right then, he didn't know if he could answer that question without taking those same walls down just a little bit.

He didn't want to lie though, so he'd just have to find a way take his walls down just enough to let Lucy know that so far, he understood how she felt. "Yes," he said quietly.

Lucy nodded again then as she took a moment to try and regain her composure again. She was both glad and disappointed that Bickslow had felt like she did, even if it was just a taste of it. She was glad that he'd be able to understand, and disappointed that he'd felt as bad as she did then. _I suppose everyone has their secrets_ , she thought.

So taking a shaky breath, she opened her eyes to look down at her hands as she laced her fingers together in her lap. She'd never once told anyone how she'd felt – even as a child – but she was telling Bickslow. It was taking a lot of courage to even be sitting there and not run out the door, muttering about how it was all a mistake and that she was really fine, but she knew that that wasn't the right thing to do.

Talking was the right thing to do. It had to be.

"Well, that's how I felt after my mother died," she said quietly. "I felt… broken, even as a child. I felt as if my world had almost ended right there, because I didn't think it would ever get better."

Bickslow remained silent as Lucy paused again, only lifting her hands from her lap to dry her eyes.

"But it did get better," she continued just as quietly with another shaky breath. "I was able to move past her dying, and the hole in my heart from her leaving got smaller, and I was eventually happy again. With my father, it wasn't that bad. It didn't hurt as much to find out that he'd passed away while we were frozen on Tenrou Island, but that was only because I never really had the best relationship with him. I still miss him, just like I miss my mother, but… it just wasn't as bad with him."

He got up from the lounge then to go over to the kitchen counter where a box of tissues sat, and quietly crouched down on the floor in front of Lucy as he held the box out in front of him. "This isn't about your parents, is it?" he asked softly, already knowing full well that it wasn't. Bickslow could tell that it was about something else, but she was starting with her parents as a way of… comparing, maybe?

He didn't know, but he wanted to.

When Lucy shook her head, sniffling as she wiped the tears from under her eyes, Bickslow frowned again. "Lucy, what happened?"

There was another moment of silence as Lucy tried to calm herself down, not willing to try and talk as she cried even though she knew she'd end up as a sobbing mess shortly, whether she wanted to or not.

Taking a deep breath as she stared down at the crumpled up piece of tissue in her hand, she continued with her story. "I lost one of my spirits," she whispered. Lucy reached into the pocket of her cardigan then to pull out Aquarius' broken key, and after turning it once in her hand, she offered it to Bickslow. "It was a couple of months ago," she paused again to grab another tissue. "I was, um… I was trying to fight one of the members of Tartaros, but… he was just… he was too strong, and I didn't have any other choice…"

Bickslow twisted the broken key in his hands as Lucy spoke. Even though the golden metal had lost most of its shine and it was really only the handle, Bickslow could recognise it as being one of the zodiac spirits. More specifically, he could recognise the symbol on the white stone that was inlaid in the bow as being the one to symbolise Aquarius.

"I-I um… I had no c-choice but to break Aq-Aquarius' k-key…" Lucy stammered. "I had to c-choose between helping t-the guild and k-keeping Aquarius, a-and I… I-I chose t-the guild… and m-my friends…"

As Lucy began to cry, her sobs filling the silence as she ducked her head even more, Bickslow wondered just what he could do in that moment. He hated seeing her cry, and as much as he wanted to just hold her and tell her that everything would be okay, he didn't think he could. He didn't know if that's what she needed, or maybe even wanted, and he didn't know if it would be too weird.

 _Oh, fuck it. She's sitting in my living room bawling her eyes out. How much weirder can it get?_

So with what he wanted to do getting the better of him, he rose from the ground to sit down on the lounge next to her, and gently pulled her in against his side with his arms wrapping around her. Bickslow didn't know whether it was the worst part or the best part (if there even was a _best_ part about all of it), but Lucy didn't even react to him hugging her in the way that he'd expected – no flinching or tensing or anything. She just… let him.

But even though Bickslow still didn't know whether it was something she'd needed him to do or wanted him to do, or something else entirely, he had to remind himself that it was for her, not for him. Because as terrible as the circumstances were, just being able to hold her in his arms – one of the simplest forms of comforting someone – was nice. Bickslow had to remind himself that it was only because it was what she needed, or wanted, or something else entirely.

"It's okay," he murmured, closing his own eyes under his visor and trying to force himself to hate the feeling of her in his arms, as difficult as it was.

"It-it's not okay," she sobbed from where she had her head resting on Bickslow's chest. She was too far gone to really care about anything anymore. "I-I know s-she's just a s-spirit, but I l-love her and I m-miss h-her, even though I k-know she's n-not really g-gone. I just… I-I just w-wish I d-didn't f-feel this w-way. It's just s-so… so s-stupid."

"It's not stupid."

"Y-yes it is," she stumbled. Lucy didn't see how it could be anything other than stupid – she was grieving over an _immortal_ spirit who claimed to hate her guts, and she just didn't know how to get over it. She felt broken because of something she'd lost, but wasn't truly gone.

Just how was that not stupid?

Bickslow, though - he didn't see it as stupid in any way, shape, or form. He actually understood how she felt, just a little bit, and he needed Lucy to know that. He needed her to see that she was allowed to feel that way, because even though he didn't know everything, he knew enough about her and how much she cared about her spirits to know that losing one of them would have been incredibly difficult for her to deal with.

The only problem was that Bickslow was going to have to take down his walls just that little bit more to show her that he understood how she felt, and that she was allowed to feel the way she did.

As much as he didn't want to do that, because he was perpetually scared of letting Lucy of all people see just how broken _he_ was beneath everything, it had to be done.

"It's really not stupid at all," he said softly, a hand gently rubbing up and down an arm as she continued to sob. "I mean, I'm not going to say that I completely know how you feel, because I don't. But I do know that you're allowed to feel this way. There's nothing stupid about grieving, Lucy." Because that's what she was doing: she was grieving, and she had every right to be as miserable as she was. Of course, Bickslow hated that she was, but he still wasn't done.

"Look," he said with a heavy sigh. "I know that spirits are completely different to souls, but, if I ever lost any of the babies, I'd still feel like you do now." And at the mention of them, the five dolls came floating from down the hall and came to hover just in front of Bickslow and Lucy, much to Bickslow's displeasure. "Oi, I was talking _about_ you, not _to_ you," he muttered.

At the sudden change in tone, Lucy turned her head ever so slightly, and when she saw the dolls floating just in front of her, all bobbing up and down in the air in silence (granted, she didn't know much about Bickslow's babies, but she knew they were rarely silent), she couldn't help but let out a strangled laugh as she raised a hand to her eyes again.

And the sound was enough to make Bickslow smile for the briefest of seconds, and then again when Lucy lifted a hand and one of the babies gently lowered itself to sit on her outstretched palm, slowly bringing it in closer to herself to study it curiously, apparently, as the other four silently zoomed around their heads.

"The point I'm trying to make is that I'd feel just as terrible if I lost one of them," he said quietly, returning his focus to helping Lucy, rather than thinking how strange it was that she seemed to have been instantly intrigued by the soul. "Most people forget that the babies are actually souls, you know? It's not like people know much about them at all, because I guess I keep it that way, but they're _souls_. They're not just… floating dolls; they were people once, and even though the majority of their unique personalities and traits are gone, there's still parts of them that remain."

"I knew all t-that already," Lucy whispered, the tip of a finger tracing over the edge of one of the wings on the side of the doll. It wasn't like she'd actively gone out to research Bickslow's magic, because she hadn't. It was just that in all the time she'd been in the guild, she'd seen how they acted, and she knew that they all did have distinct personalities.

Just from seeing their antics in and around the guild, she knew that three of the five were a lot louder than the other two. They tended the repeat Bickslow's words more often, whereas the other two, were more… reserved, and on the odd occasion, she'd actually seen Bickslow have conversations with them, if you could even call them that.

Lucy had never paid special attention to them, but she had been curious. She'd always been curious, because in a strange way, they'd always reminded her of her spirits, even though she really didn't know that much about them. They were immortal beings, but she felt like they all held the ability to make connections with people – with Bickslow, really. They were never just floating dolls to her.

And it was all just from observing every now and then in the guild when she'd had nothing better to do, and Bickslow had been making a fool of himself and drawing attention.

But Bickslow didn't know any of that, and he was left stunned for a moment as he tried to comprehend what was going on. No one knew anything about the lost souls he controlled – not even his team, really. They only knew what he'd told them, and he hadn't told them that much.

"Right, well," he continued. "Not many people understand that they're not just _things_ that are controlled. They can… form bonds, I guess. They're not mindless. They're temperamental, but they really are more than just lost souls. I know I don't exactly seem like I do, but I do love them. Even though they're not human or even close to being so, they're such a huge part of my life, and who I actually am, that I would never be able to be okay with ever losing them."

"Not! Temperamental!" the one in Lucy's hand chirped, bouncing around slightly and causing her to let out another strangled laugh.

"Shut up, you are," Bickslow chuckled slightly. "Look, the point I'm trying to make is that you really are allowed to feel this way," he said quietly after a short moment. "It doesn't matter that Aquarius is a spirit, because everyone knows how much you love all of your spirits. They're a lot more like people than souls are, but I'm saying that it would still hurt like hell losing one, and it's because you love them. You're allowed to grieve, Lucy, whether she's immortal or not. There's nothing stupid about it."

Lucy sighed as the doll in her hand flew off to zoom around with the others, and she reached for another tissue as she sniffled. "Whether you're r-right or not," she whispered, drying her eyes again. "I still w-wish I didn't feel like this. It's supposed to get easier with t-time, not harder…" Though Lucy really did have to admit Bickslow had made sense. She loved her spirits like they were part of her family, and when it came to Aquarius, she really had been part of her family, having grown up with the beloved water bearing spirit.

It was just that she really hated feeling the way she did. She hated that things only got worse with each day and that the light at the end of the tunnel only got further and further away, and the further away it got, the less optimistic she got about ever getting better, and ever being happy again.

"I don't want to offend or upset you any more than you are… but do you think it has something to do with not telling anyone about what happened?"

"P-probably…" Lucy muttered, knowing full well that keeping it all to herself for the last two months had definitely not been helping.

"You know talking about things usually helps," he said softly.

"I know… I just…" she pulled her head away from where it was resting on Bickslow and sat up slightly, her shoulders stooped as she turned the broken key fragment she'd picked up from the table in her hands idly. "I just didn't want to tell anyone, because I couldn't help but – and I still can't, I guess – feel like no one cares. It's just… it's just how I grew up. I got used to trying to deal with everything on my own, and I thought it would be the same for this."

Bickslow moved to kneel in front of the lounge again. "Hey, there's always going to be someone who cares. Even if it's just one person, _someone_ will always care," Of course, with Lucy's case, it wasn't entirely right, because she had made it so no one cared. If no one knew she was hurting, then no one would have reason to suspect anything was wrong and have cause to care, right? "And it's okay to ask for help sometimes. I totally get the entire wanting to deal with everything on your own thing, but take it from someone who's tried and tested that method multiple times, it doesn't work. At all. Things just get harder to deal with." And Bickslow really did know that all too well.

"I can't help feeling that way, Bickslow. I know that… I know that _you_ care, and I don't know why you do—"

"It doesn't matter why I do," he interjected before she could even ask why again.

"Okay, fine," she sighed. "But still, it's just what I got brought up with. I got brought up to think that there was always someone dealing with something far worse than what I was, and I… I was worried that people would hate me if I… needed them, I guess." A strange feeling washed over Lucy then. It was almost reminiscent of relief, but there was something else to it. All she knew then was that it had something to do with actually admitting she needed help, and as hard as it was to accept that, she knew she did. She was finally seeing just how much she needed that, and in a way, she was thankful that she was able to see that.

"Come on, no one would hate you. That's ridiculous. You are quite literally impossible to hate."

"I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who would hate me for it," she muttered.

"Guarantee you that there isn't," Bickslow insisted. "Besides, even if it really were possible for someone to hate you for, god forbid it, actually needing help," he feigned shock, though he couldn't help but smile just a little bit. "Right now, you're dealing with something far worse than I am, and I certainly don't hate you."

"Gee, thanks."

Bickslow chuckled at her small smile. "I mean it though," he said quietly. "No one would ever hate you for needing help. Don't ever think that again."

Lucy looked up slightly and nodded, knowing deep down, that Bickslow was right. It was almost as if the longer she sat there and listened to Bickslow, the more she realised just how wrong and stupid everything had been. She was wholeheartedly thankful for that, too, because without Bickslow, she wouldn't have seen just how much she really had needed someone – as hard as it was to admit that – and she wouldn't have felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. And, as much as Lucy had wanted to avoid having to share her burden, she was glad that it wasn't just hers alone anymore. Of course, it was still entirely her pain, and in essence, it really was her burden and hers alone, but just telling someone about all of it had made it just that little bit better.

Already, even just after a short conversation, Lucy could see that the light at the end of the tunnel where things were all okay, and she was maybe happy once again, had gotten just that little bit closer. She could already sense that opening up to someone was already helping, and it was all because Bickslow had come to her door only a few hours earlier.

"Can I ask you something?" Bickslow asked quietly.

"Of course."

"When your… when your mother died," he paused just enough to lick his lips that were suddenly feeling very dry. "You said you felt broken. Is that… is that really how you feel now too?"

After a moment of silence, Lucy finally nodded while she continued to twist the broken key around in her hands slowly. "I guess…" she whispered. "It's… it's silly. It probably doesn't even make sense." Because honestly, was it even possible to be broken? It didn't matter if that was how she felt, because she didn't know if it was possible. And at that point, she'd completely forgotten that Bickslow had even said he knew just how she felt at that moment.

"Damn it, Lucy," Bickslow said suddenly, the sudden outburst causing Lucy to finally look up. Taking a breath to calm himself some, he looked down briefly before standing up quickly, only to take a seat on his coffee table as he slid everything to the opposite side of it, and with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands loosely clasped together, he looked to the confused girl in front of him. "You've gotta stop saying everything is silly and stupid, because I really don't think I can stress enough that it isn't. You're perfectly justified to feel however the fuck you want, and if you wanna say you're broken? Then be broken. No one is going to doubt how you feel, and if anyone thinks they have the right to question it, they can go to Edolas or something and stay there. I just want to help you, and when you just go and say that everything is stupid, it irritates me more than I care to admit."

And as Lucy just continued to stare at him, only blinking in confusion, Bickslow realised that he'd probably said just a little bit too much. But, it really had irritated him. It was like Lucy was only taking one step forward in regards to opening up and finally accepting things, only to take two steps back, doubting herself and making herself believe that it was all ridiculous. Bickslow hated seeing that. It was like a vicious circle – watching Lucy ever so slowly get better right before his very eyes, only to sink even further into that dark pit of despair, and over and over again.

He was trying his best to stop that rotation. Fuck that pit of despair; he only wanted to see Lucy get better.

But before she could even respond to little outburst, whether to argue it or question anything he'd said, Bickslow decided he needed to say one more thing. It was one more thing that maybe, just maybe, would show her that he cared, and he really did want to help her.

"Look," he began. "I get that you feel broken right now, and I understand that feeling more than you know, but that's okay. You know why that's okay? Because everything that is broken can be fixed. You just have to go about it the right way, and eventually things go back to the way they were – or close to them, actually. I want to help you, because I hate seeing you like this. Please, Lucy, tell me how I can help you; tell me how I can _fix_ you."

But even though she still wasn't quite sure if it was even possible to be broken – hell, body and soul, if it could be – Lucy felt the sting of tears in her eyes as she ducked her head again. Bickslow was right, and so far, he'd been right all along. It didn't matter what was possible or impossible, or what other people thought, because it was about what she felt. It was all about her, and in that moment, and much like she had as a child, she truly did feel broken.

Like the key that was in her hand, she was broken. Everything had just been too much… and she'd just… broken. Shattered into a million pieces, even, because of how fragile she apparently was.

And as that thought ran through her mind, she realised just how terrifying it truly was. She'd never once thought of herself as being fragile, but losing Aquarius had felt like it was the last straw. Maybe she'd just lost too many people she loved, and her heart – her soul, her body – couldn't take it anymore. But maybe it had been there all along. Maybe that's who Lucy had truly been all along, and it was just her upbringing that had hardened her exterior and made her into the person that she'd thought she was – the strong and independent woman who tried her very best to be kind and not rely on anyone for things she knew she could deal with on her own.

Maybe it had all been wrong. Maybe she wasn't that person after all, and maybe losing Aquarius had just destroyed that outer shell, and the fragile girl who felt alone in the world was all that was left.

Lucy truly didn't know if that was the case, and it terrified her.

But regardless of all that, the fact remained that Lucy was the broken girl with the broken key, and she needed to be fixed. Whether by Bickslow, or someone else, having reached the point where she knew that there was no way in hell she'd be able to do anything on her own, she had to be fixed. She had to be pieced back together so she could become the person that she'd thought she was, because that was the self that she'd loved.

The longer she stared down at the key, the more she began to worry whether she could be fixed. She was so scared of what would happen if things did end up getting worse. She had but a glimmer of hope that she'd see some form of happiness again, and granted, Bickslow had made that glimmer just a little bit brighter, but still, what if that hope completely disappeared? Lucy honestly didn't think she'd cope if things got worse, given that she was barely coping with things as it was.

It was only when she felt arms around her again, holding her tight and letting her bury her head against the warm fabric of the sweater, did she realise that she'd actually begun to cry again. She was so far past caring at that point that she barely noticed herself drop Aquarius' key to the ground to loosely ball her hands within the fabric of Bickslow's sweater.

"I don't…" she choked out, desperately trying to form a clear sentence with all of the truly terrifying thoughts that ran through her head. "I don't know how."

Because Lucy truly didn't know how Bickslow could fix her. She didn't know how anyone could, for that matter.

* * *

 **Ah, so, another day means another chapter, and so far, I hope you're all enjoying it as much as I enjoyed writing it. These first few chapters were definitely more fun to do.**

 **Anyway. Not much in the way of A/Ns this time around, but as usual (if you've read my other stories, then you'll know where I'm going with this), thank you for reading and reviewing!**

 **I shall see you all tomorrow for the next chapter. :)**

 **\- April**


	5. (I) Nowhere I'd Rather Be

**I know it's up a little earlier, but since this is still on the first day's prompt, I figured it isn't the end of the world if I technically upload twice in one day. ;)**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 3: FIX**_  
 _ **NOWHERE I'D RATHER BE**_

* * *

Lucy awoke on an unfamiliar surface with a quiet groan, and as she slowly pushed herself up to sit, she rubbed at her heavy eyes. She slowly looked around the room she was in, blinking as she tried to clear her hazy vision from just waking up. It took her a few moments to recognise her surroundings, but once she saw Aquarius' key on the coffee table in front of her and one of the five totemic dolls sitting on the armrest of the lounge she was sitting on, her worry began to subside. She was still in Bickslow's apartment, and she was strangely fine with that.

Of course, she didn't remember falling asleep, but apparently she had, and there was no point of focusing on that now.

Stretching her arms above her head, she stood from the lounge and leant forward to pick up her broken key, hastily putting it back in her cardigan pocket. Lucy looked around the room from where she stood, partly because she was looking for Bickslow, and partly because she was looking for a clock. She could always just ask Horologium for the time, but she figured she'd try and find out the time the old fashioned way first.

"Oh, you're awake."

Lucy turned her head to look in the direction Bickslow's voice had come from to see him emerging from a hall, his usual attire on. The doll that was closest to Lucy went to join the other four that were trailing just behind Bickslow, and sensing that Bickslow was going out, Lucy quickly reached for her purse that was sitting on the table and swung the strap over her shoulder.

"Yeah, sorry," she said, glancing behind her to the lounge and the coffee table again to make sure she wasn't leaving anything behind. "I didn't mean to impose. I don't even remember falling asleep, to be honest…"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Bickslow replied, waiving her concerns. He really didn't mind that she'd fallen asleep, even if she had originally done so _on_ him (well, sort of), and he really had no idea how that had even happened at all. He'd only had to carefully and almost surgically remove her from she had been resting against him and ignore the tiny voice at the back of his head that was trying to convince himself to just stay there and not disturb her. Of course, he hadn't let that voice win, because it was just incredibly fucking weird to have her sleep on him (and incredibly fucking nice, but he was also ignoring that), and Bickslow had been glad he'd been able to move her without disturbing her and waking her. While she slept on the lounge, he went back to his bed – _alone_. "But uh, anyway…" he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck when she came to stand in front of him by the door. "I've gotta go soon."

Lucy nodded as she crossed her arms. "A job, right?" she asked, recalling him mentioning something about needing to leave around noon to get a train for a job his team and Laxus had a few towns over.

"Yeah. I'll be back in a few days though," he said. "You know, if you ever want to talk or anything when I get back." Bickslow still wasn't sure if she wanted to talk to him, in all honestly. Now that she'd opened up to someone about what had had her so down, maybe she was ready to tell the ones she cared about most, because her team – her best friends – would do a hell of a better job of piecing her back together than Bickslow ever could.

Just because he wanted to be the person to do that, it didn't mean he couldn't see what would be best for Lucy, and he could see that he was probably not the best person for that job. He was just a means to get her to that point where she was willing to help herself (and let someone else help her, for that matter), and admit that something was wrong. Bickslow was okay with that, though, because in a way, he would have helped her. Even if it was just one night and only a few hours of talking at most, Bickslow liked to think that if it wasn't for that conversation and him taking a risk (and Lucy taking the chance to trust him), then she'd still be denying that anything was wrong.

Lucy didn't see Bickslow as just a means to getting her to that point though, but then again, she wasn't exactly sure what she saw him as. She still didn't know how she was supposed to deal with everything, and she didn't know how to let Bickslow – or anyone else – help her with that. She knew there was something she or someone else could do, but she just really wasn't sure what.

All she knew was that she was incredibly glad for what Bickslow had done, even if it was just one night and a few hours of talking.

"I might just take you up on that offer," she said with a slight smile, taking another step towards the door. She really wouldn't mind talking to Bickslow again – about anything at all, really.

"Well, alright then," Bickslow said, responding with his own wide grin before he turned to the side to lean against the wall just next to the door. He could already see that her smile was just that little bit more genuine. "Are you going in to the guild later?" he asked.

Lucy shrugged. "Probably."

"Any chance you'll end up telling your team or whatever anything?"

"…Probably not, to be honest." The truth was that Lucy just wasn't quite ready to tell them, and it wasn't because she was still going to try and pretend everything was okay. No, it was because she was strangely okay with just Bickslow knowing for the time being. She felt like she'd had a weight lifted off her shoulders just from knowing that someone else could see and somewhat understand how she'd felt for months. Right now, she just didn't need or really want to talk about anything with anyone else. "I will eventually. Just not right now," she finished.

Bickslow nodded. He hadn't expected her to do so right away, so he understood that. "Fair enough," he said.

"Yeah…" Lucy mumbled as she smiled softly again. "Anyway, uh… I should really leave," she briefly glanced down to the ground before she stepped forward, and raising herself to stand on her tip-toes, she wrapped her arms around him, letting her hands come to rest on top of the seemingly tense shoulders. "Thank you, though."

It took Bickslow a second to finally relax and hug Lucy back, only really because he hadn't expected it to happen at all. Hugging her when she was crying was one thing, because it was to comfort her. That was different. "What for?" he asked, finally wrapping his arms around her waist as he looked down at her resting her head on his shoulder.

"For listening, and making me come to my senses about everyone and everything, and, you know, just caring."

"Anytime, Cosplayer."

Lucy laughed as they pulled apart. "Aw, come on," she whined, the dullest of sparkles in her playful eyes that looked up to Bickslow. "You were doing so well! You managed to avoid calling me Cosplayer for an entire night."

Bickslow feigned shock as he leant to the side to lean against the wall with his arms folded again. Of course, his somewhat shocked and surprised mask that was mostly hidden beneath his visor was lost when he couldn't stop himself from grinning back at the laughing blonde. He was really enjoying hearing that, no matter how slight it was. "Well, I guess I fucked up then."

"You're going to stop calling me that one day, right?" Lucy asked, shaking her head as she turned back to the door and let her hand rest on the handle.

"Never."

"But it was just one time!"

"Mmm… no," he mumbled, straightening up to begin to count on his fingers as he started his list. "There was that time where you kicked my ass with Loke, then there was the Halloween party at the guild just after that, and then there was the Halloween party last week... oh, and there was also that time you—"

"Okay, okay!" Lucy cut him off suddenly, her cheeks a shade of red that rivalled Erza's hair. "So maybe it wasn't just _one time_ ," because in all fairness, she'd dressed up more than once in the years she'd been in the guild. "But Halloween doesn't count."

"It really does."

She rolled her eyes before she turned the handle on the door and quickly pulled it open. "Whatever," she sighed. "I will find a way to make you stop calling me Cosplayer one day."

"Good luck with that," he chuckled. There was no way he'd ever stop calling her that. Ever.

Lucy rolled her eyes again. "Anyway, thanks again for last night," she said with another small smile. "I'll see you around, Bickslow."

Bickslow could only smile and nod as she gently closed the door behind herself, and as soon as he was sure she was at least halfway down the stairs, he turned until his back was flat against the wall, and he slid down to sit on the floor with his arms resting on his knees. Even with just talking to her then for just a few minutes, Bickslow could feel his walls crumbling away again. There was a part of him that wanted to tear them down, just because it was already getting too hard to keep them up. It was incredibly difficult for Bickslow to make sure he didn't let his true feelings show through the façade he put up on a daily basis, because it was just so easy to talk to Lucy.

The more he'd talked to her, the less he had to think and worry about what he said. He was constantly having to think about his words when he was with everyone else, and with Lucy, it was one of the most important things he should be focusing on. Yet, with her, he just couldn't.

But Bickslow still knew he had to watch his words; he had to watch everything he did, because there was no way he could let Lucy see just how he felt. Not now, not ever. It didn't matter how easy it was to talk to her – whether it was about how she felt or something completely random – and how Bickslow felt like he really could just sit there and listen to her ramble and laugh for hours on end, because he knew that if he did that, then he wouldn't be able to keep those walls up for much longer. They would come crashing down and he wouldn't know how to rebuild them; he'd be the one that was exposed instead of Lucy.

He didn't even have Lucy in his life, but he was so scared of losing her. He was scared of losing a friend because of something he had never wanted to happen. He'd never wanted to fall in love with her, but he had, and he had to get over it. She was someone that he'd never be with, and no matter how much he'd accepted that fact, he just couldn't bring himself to stop loving her, no matter what he tried.

So he'd learned to just deal with it, and just hope that one day, he managed to fall _out_ of love with her. It was just that Bickslow had almost intentionally fucked all of that up for himself, and it was all because he did love her and he cared about her. It was the fact he'd been so worried and concerned about her happiness – or lack thereof – that had made things worse for himself than they already were, because Bickslow knew that the more time he spent with her, the harder it would be to get over her. Just sitting for hours and listening to her ramble and laugh, no matter how much he would enjoy it, was something he could never do, even if it did ever have a chance of happening.

It was why Bickslow was fine with being just a means to Lucy being able to admit that she wasn't as happy as everyone thought she was and helping her get to a point where she was at least willing to talk to someone about it all. As much as Bickslow wanted to help her, there was still that part of him that knew he couldn't. He didn't want to fuck things up for her or himself, and even though he'd offered to be there for her should she ever want to talk about anything else, he really hoped she didn't have to do that, because he was just so scared of letting her see just the kind of person he was, and exactly how much he cared.

* * *

Lucy anxiously drummed her fingertips on the surface of the bar, her chin resting in the palm of her other hand. It was early, and being a weekend, the guild was relatively quiet. Wendy had gone off on a job with Gajeel, and thanks to the younger Dragon Slayer, the cut on Lucy's hand was but a feint pink line; the rest of Team Natsu had left on a job the day before; Team Shadow Gear had gone on another job that just so happened to be in the same area as Gajeel and Wendy's, and everyone else was either asleep, still drinking, or hung over and hiding in the dark for the rest of the morning. Cana was one of the ones who was still sleeping, and like she occasionally did, she was slumped over a barrel at the bar that Lucy was sitting at, still dead to the world thanks to the previous night's drinking adventures.

With the rest of Lucy's team out on a job for at least a week, Lucy had an excuse to be acting a little quieter than usual, and when Mira had asked her why she'd been acting a little off all morning as she ate her breakfast silently, Lucy had of course just said she'd missed her team. But that wasn't the case at all. In truth, Lucy didn't miss her team at all. Sure, they were her best friends and they were essentially her family, but she really did enjoy not going on every single job on them, even if it was a rare occasion when she didn't join them. She'd had no reason to, though, because with her rent paid, she was in no rush to go out and earn enough to pay it and keep her landlady happy.

But as she sat at the bar, aware of the concerned glances Mira would shoot her way every so often as she talked to her siblings, Lucy couldn't help but occasionally turn her head to look to the guild doors in hopes that a certain Seith mage and the rest of his team would walk through them. And it was strange to be waiting for Bickslow to come back from his job, and it was also strange that she almost felt like she missed him. Lucy was convinced she didn't miss him though, because Bickslow was just a friend; an unlikely and new friend, but a friend nonetheless.

She'd be lying if she said Bickslow wasn't part of the reason she'd chosen not to go with her own team on a job, because she was actually looking forward to when he returned, because she was kind of hoping to spend some time with him. You know, just talking, maybe getting to know more about the man behind the mask – or visor, as it were.

Lucy didn't know where her strange desire to talk and spend time with Bickslow had come from, but she reasoned it had something to do with all he'd done for her earlier in the week. Just one conversation in the middle of the night and it had made things just that little bit more bearable; bearable enough that she no longer had to cry herself to sleep and gorge herself on chocolate, wine, and good books.

All Lucy knew was that if Bickslow hadn't come to her apartment in the near middle of the night and asked her what had happened, then she wouldn't be feeling surprisingly great that day, and she hadn't felt even a tinge of happiness in months.

So when Lucy turned to look towards the oversized doors at the front of the guild hall that was still mostly empty, she perked up just a little bit when the sulking and hulking man that was only known as Laxus Dreyar came through, followed by Evergreen and Freed. Even from where Lucy sat at the bar, she could see Laxus rolling his eyes at Evergreen and Freed's bickering. She couldn't understand them, but with the hall being quiet in the mornings, she could hear the shrill tone of Evergreen's voice and the calm and most likely logical argument that Freed was coming back with.

But the one person that Lucy was actually waiting to walk through the doors hadn't. _Maybe he's just not coming in until later? Or maybe they only got back early this morning and he went back home before coming to the guild, or maybe he's just not coming in today?_

Sighing, she turned back to face the bar in front of her and took another sip of her orange juice. She was honestly a little disappointed that Bickslow hadn't come in – yet – and she really wasn't all that sure why, but she realised she had been looking forward to seeing and talking to Bickslow more than she thought, and it was still strange. It was why she presently found herself wondering if he really was at home, and if it would be strange to go and visit him. Surely it wouldn't be that odd, considering she'd showed up at his door at three o'clock in the morning less than a week earlier, and well, that was definitely not normal.

Granted, it would probably be weirder if she waited for Bickslow to come in to the guild to go and talk to him then, because until a few days earlier, all of their conversations consisted of Bickslow teasing her about her apparent interest in dressing up. That, or Loke, or Natsu, or any other male in the guild she was supposedly in love with.

"You know what, Mira?" Lucy suddenly got up from the stool and quickly drank the little bit of juice that was left in the glass. "I think I might go shopping or something," she lied.

"Oh! That sounds fun!" Mira exclaimed as she came to pick up the empty glass from where Lucy sat.

"Yeah, very," Lucy replied as she smiled softly. "Anyway, I'll see you later."

"Have fun, Lucy!"

And as the cheerful demon went back to talking to her siblings and trying to wake up Cana, Lucy quickly waved behind her and made her way towards the doors, walking past the table where most of the Raijinshuu sat withLaxus, motionless with a scowl on his face and his SoundPod on over his ears.

Eventually, though, Lucy made it across town and to Bickslow's apartment building. It wasn't like Lucy was unfit, because in all honestly, she did take quite good care of her body and kept in shape (mostly), but the trek from the guild to the building was much longer than she'd thought. Her own apartment was much closer, and Lucy could only wonder how Bickslow did it on a near daily basis. Then again, she reasoned that he probably flew, rather than walked. But on the off chance he did walk from one end of town to the complete opposite end on a daily basis, then it might explain why he had such a surprisingly defined body.

As Lucy found herself thinking about Bickslow's muscles and just how he'd got them (because let's face it, he wasn't one to get into the entire physical fighting thing), she felt the heat increase on her face. She shouldn't be thinking about that; why the fuck was she thinking about that?!

Shaking her head lightly to herself as she made her way into the apartment building just to clear her head of all things she should not be thinking of, she let her fingers ghost over Horologium's key as she came up to the stairs. It was still before 9AM, and even if Bickslow was home, she didn't know if he was awake or still asleep, because she also didn't know if his team had got back into town the night before or early that morning.

 _Oh god,_ _I'm overthinking things. Why am I overthinking things? If he's home, great! If he's not, fine! It doesn't matter!_

Lucy finally reached the top floor of his building, and just as she rounded the corner from the stairs to the small landing that was just outside his door (given that his apartment was the only one on the floor), she saw a woman emerging from his apartment – straight blonde hair down to her waist, dark red dress that hugged her figure, and black strappy heels in her hand as her other hand gently pulled the door closed. As the woman quickly walked past her, keeping her head ducked in her apparent shame and embarrassment (and Lucy quickly realised that she was indeed doing a walk of shame of some sort), Lucy wondered if Bickslow maybe did in fact have a girlfriend. It was entirely possible, but as possible as it might be, given she knew almost nothing about the man, she couldn't help but feel just a little bit… hurt – almost with a hint of… jealousy?

Surely that wasn't right though. Why would she be hurt by that? She had no reason to feel that way, and in all honestly, Lucy wasn't even sure if it was what she really felt. It was just that hurt was the only word that came to mind to describe it.

But she knew it absurd. She was convinced she was actually going insane. So putting all of her odd thoughts and feelings aside, she took the last few steps to knock on the only door and wait for Bickslow to open it, as well as hope that he wanted to spend some time with her, even though there was now a very small part of Lucy that was doubting whether it was a good idea to do so.

* * *

Bickslow was woken up by someone tugging on the sheets, and as he rolled over to his other side to find just who it was, he had to stifle a groan when he came face-to-face with his apparent guest for the night. He hated when they stayed until morning, and he hated even more when he had to wake them up and kick them out. Wasn't it etiquette to leave before the host wakes up, and not try and take over their bed?

He'd never particularly enjoyed having to kick women out of his bed in the morning – or at all – because they always whined and called him a jerk. And granted, it was pretty fair. They were one night stands, though, and he didn't want to take the risk of them getting attached from one night of drunken sex, and it actually happened quite a bit. Bickslow just never slept with the same person more than once – ever.

But as Bickslow sat up slowly and ignored his pounding head, he couldn't help but notice he'd once again just happened to bring home a blonde in his drunken state. Bickslow could see that he probably would have taken this particular woman home, just because she would have looked like another certain blonde who lived in Magnolia. Namely, the one he would and never could have. Of course, this woman's resemblance to the one he was actually in love with was something that would have been more apparent when he was intoxicated, because looking at her now, Bickslow wondered just how he could have seen her as being even remotely close to what Lucy looked like.

Of course, it was something he always wondered when he saw the far from stellar faces of his partners come morning, because in all reality, no one could even come close to resembling Lucy. To Bickslow, she was one of a kind and there wasn't anyone else that looked anything like her, nor look as amazing as her. It was just that Bickslow had a knack for sleeping with blondes those days, and there were quite a few blondes in Magnolia who looked like Lucy when he was drunk.

Eventually, though, he did manage to get the woman with no name out of his bed and out of his apartment. Of course, after being called a rude asshole and got denied a second _date_ – not that it would ever happen anyway, because Bickslow wasn't interested. He was glad he was alone again once she'd closed the door behind herself and begun her walk of shame (Bickslow could only feel a little sorry for her considering she was having to walk home late on a Saturday morning in the previous night's attire, and that was a little embarrassing for anyone).

It was only when he was about to go and have a shower and change did he hear a knock on his door, and being barely a minute after his guest had left, Bickslow couldn't imagine it as being anyone else but his guest from the previous night. Maybe she'd forgotten something, or felt the need to call him out on his slight womanising tendencies some more? It wouldn't be the first time it had happened.

Except when he did open the door, he wasn't looking at the same blonde that had just left his apartment. Rather, it was the one blonde that he simultaneously wanted to see and avoid. And for the second time in a week, Lucy had shown up at his door when he was wearing nothing but loose pants that hung low on his hips – something she enjoyed far more than he did.

"Lucy?" he said, an eyebrow raised in question as he looked back to the slightly blushing blonde – not that he understood why.

"Uh, hi," Lucy replied, forcing herself to look back up with a slight smile. "I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe… do something, today? You know, like… hang out, or something?"

"With me?" It had to be a joke. Why in the world was Lucy Heartfilia wanting to actually spend time with him? Something was wrong there, and Bickslow didn't know what.

"Well, yeah… I wouldn't be here otherwise, but if you're busy or don't want to, that's fine," she muttered. Lucy could feel a sense of doubt rising within her, and she suddenly felt like asking Bickslow if he wanted to actually spend time with _her_ was incredibly stupid. Why in the world would he want to do that? Lucy couldn't help but feel like she'd just made a huge fool of herself, and it was why she took a step back and forced herself to smile again, pretending like she didn't feel stupid and honestly a little hurt. "Sorry, you probably have plans for today—"

"I don't," Bickslow cut her off suddenly, trying hard to keep his face void of all emotion, considering his brain was screaming at himself. "I'm not busy, so I mean, we could do something, or whatever." _Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why would you say something like that? God fucking damn it, man._ "Um, come in, sorry."

Lucy followed Bickslow into his apartment then, and she quickly looked around the living room before she sat her bag down on the dining table, before turning when she heard the door close behind her.

"So… uh… I just need to go like, have a shower… and get dressed," Bickslow mumbled while he rubbed the back of his head. "Just make yourself…" _At home?_ "Comfortable."

"Alright then," she said with a smile as Bickslow turned and headed down the hall. Lucy couldn't help but be grateful for Bickslow getting dressed, because if he hadn't, then there would be a high chance of her getting distracted, and it was a little embarrassing to admit that to herself.

So with Bickslow off having a shower, thinking about just what he was going to do about Lucy wanting to hang out with him (not that she knew that it was going to be a problem for Bickslow), Lucy was free to look around his living room. She didn't think she was expected to just sit on the lounge and stare at a spot on the wall for the entire time, so surely Bickslow wouldn't mind if she just looked around a little bit.

To begin her mission to find out more about Bickslow, she went to the bookshelf that ran the length of the wall behind his dining table. Lucy looked over a few of the books first, most of them being classics that Lucy had read multiple times in her life. She'd never pegged Bickslow as the type to read, but then again she'd never expected him to be the type of person to care about her, and that was something she was still trying to figure out. Hopefully he'd tell her how he figured it all out… one day.

Between the books were the odd trinkets and bits and pieces; photos of himself and his team when they were younger (well, she assumed they were younger, since Freed and Evergreen looked a little younger and baby-faced, but she couldn't tell with Bickslow), one with the majority of the guild that Lucy could remember being taken, and another with what looked to be Bickslow's family, and she couldn't help but smile slightly at the grinning boy in the picture. Even when he looked to be barely even a teenager, he still had that nearly outrageous grin where his tongue hung from his mouth, but as a child, he hadn't had the crazy hairstyle (which Lucy had to admit was actually pretty cool), nor did he have the mark across the bridge of his nose, which just made Lucy wonder if it was actually a tattoo.

Just when she'd been about to turn to see if there was anything else that would clue her in to Bickslow's life, the five dolls that were usually following Bickslow had come out from the hall and quickly began to twirl around her head.

"Well, hello there," Lucy giggled, only ducking her head slightly when she was sure one of them was going to fly into the side of it as she slowly made her way to where the lounge was to sit down on the edge.

"Lucy! Lucy!" a few of the babies chanted one at a time, and Lucy couldn't help but find them all adorable as they continued to zoom around her head. They were like tiny balls of energy – granted, they were incredibly dangerous (and Lucy definitely knew that they were dangerous, having been on the receiving end of their attacks twice), but they were cute, even if they basically were just floating pieces of wood.

"At least you guys know my name," she laughed again, and as one of them gently lowered itself to sit in her outstretched palm, Lucy looked down to the one she recognised as being the same one that had come to sit on her hand earlier in the week. "And what about you? Do you guys have names?" she asked the one in her hand.

As they rattled off their names one by one, Lucy made a mental note of which one was which, matching their names to each of their unique faces. She knew it probably wasn't necessary to remember them, but she wanted to.

When Bickslow came down the hall a little while later, dressed in just a plain tee and jeans and with his visor on, he stopped just before he was at the end when he heard something that almost made his heart almost melt – it was Lucy's laugh, and it honestly sounded genuine. It wasn't forced like he'd heard so many times over the months and it wasn't the short bursts from his odd quips that had happened many times over the course of the night she'd been in his apartment last. No, instead, it was an actual laugh, and even without seeing her, Bickslow could tell that she was already just that little bit happier.

"Hmm, so what's Bickslow's deepest and darkest secret? I'm sure you guys know it," she said suddenly around her laughter, and at her words, Bickslow could only slowly move just that little bit further down the hall and towards his living area.

"Bickslow! Love! L—"

His eyes went wide when he heard the familiar voices of his – in that moment – frankly annoying babies, and in a split second, Bickslow realised that the babies had found their way out to Lucy while he'd been in the shower, and Lucy had decided to talk to them. But before his not so beloved babies could finish their sentence that was bound to make things absolutely terrible for everyone, he'd cut off their magic, and he came out of the hall just in time to see them all fall to the floor, except for the one in Lucy's hand.

There was no way he was letting them get that last word out around Lucy.

She looked up with her brows arched in curiosity when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and when she saw Bickslow coming out of the hall and heading straight into the kitchen just beside it, she couldn't help but let her mouth pull up into a slight smirk. "Oh? So you love someone, huh?" she asked, gently placing the doll in her hand on the coffee table before getting up and crossing the room to sit on one of the bar stools at the counter.

"Nope," Bickslow replied quickly, turning to start pulling things out of the fridge and avoid Lucy's way too mischievous smile.

"Hmm, someone whose name begins with L…" she mused, her fingertip tapping on her chin. "Oh! Laxus?" She doubted it was actually Laxus, but now she was just having fun. She couldn't have stopped herself if she tried.

He turned back around then, and even with his visor on, Lucy was sure he was scowling at her, and she began to laugh again as she leant forward to rest her chin in her palms. "That's not even funny," Bickslow mumbled. Sure, his team might also worship the man (Freed a little more than most), but he wasn't actually in love with the guy. "Anyway, dropping the topic of who I might or might not be in love with, do you… want anything?" he asked, pulling a large glass bowl from a cupboard and placing it on the bench.

It was probably customary and polite to offer your guests food if you're cooking, right? Bickslow just really wasn't sure. His only guests were his team (who just helped themselves, and he didn't care), or whoever he ended up sleeping with, and they never stayed long enough to be offered breakfast. Not that he would, of course.

She hummed in thought for a moment as she watched him begin to crack some eggs into the bowl. "So you don't offer your girlfriend breakfast, but you offer it to me instead?" As soon as the words had left her mouth, she wished she hadn't said it. She honestly wasn't sure why she had, but she figured it had something to do with the fact that the woman she'd walked past in the hall was stuck in her head. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't just a little bit curious as to whether the woman before was actually his girlfriend, or if he even had one at all.

But as soon as she'd asked, Bickslow had had to scramble to catch one of the eggs before he'd dropped it on the ground, and Lucy had been aware that the question had caught him off guard, and even though it explained her almost permanent smirk, it didn't quite explain the blush. He'd been a little worried that Lucy had run in to his guest from the previous night, but he was hoping the timing had been perfect and they'd have avoided each other. Apparently that wasn't the case.

Once he'd regained his composure and was no longer worried about accidentally dropping any eggs on the floor or the bench, he shrugged and looked down to avoid looking at her. He was worried about her being able to tell just was uncomfortable he really was by the conversation. "Not my girlfriend," he mumbled. _Not that I see why it's relevant._ "Anyway, do you want anything or not? And, if you want to hang out with me, although I'm still not sure why, then you have to follow my rules."

"I already had breakfast at the guild, but thanks anyway," she replied as a perfectly threaded brow arched again while perfectly avoiding answering why she wanted to spend her morning with Bickslow. The simple truth was that there was nowhere else she'd rather be in that moment, as odd as it was. "And seriously, do you really have rules when it comes to spending time with you?"

"When I'm hung over, yes."

Lucy laughed again. "I take it you had a good night then," she said, instantly wishing she hadn't said it again. If he had a woman leaving his apartment and he was hung over, then it was obvious he had a good night. Lucy just couldn't keep herself from saying stupid things anymore. "But what are these rules of yours?"

"Firstly, no questions about my night; one, because it's weird, and two, I don't really remember it," he said.

She nodded. It was fair, plus, she honestly had no intentions of asking about his night. She was still trying to figure out why it strangely hurt to see someone who wasn't actually Bickslow's girlfriend (something she was also strangely relieved to know) leaving his apartment.

"Secondly, if you're really set on spending time with me—"

"I am."

"Then you'll have to put up with staying here for a little while. At least until I'm done eating or I've managed to recover just a little bit." Bickslow really didn't think he'd be able to cope with going anywhere that was loud when he was hung over, and it was why he'd been planning on staying home and avoiding the guild. Lucy, though, she was quiet and he could deal with her. It didn't help he just really couldn't deny her if he tried.

Lucy remained silent as she watched Bickslow before getting up and going over to the dining table to pick up her bag. "We really don't have to do anything," she said, trying to hide her disappointment. "I mean, you obviously don't—"

"No, no, I do," he cut her off, making her turn back around before she could get to the door, and he actually really did want to spend time with her, as much of a problem as it was. "I just…" Bickslow sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Wow, I realised I'm being a massive jerk right now."

"A little bit."

Bickslow really did know he was acting like a jerk though, and it wasn't intentional at all. He realised that he was making it seem like a chore to spend time with her, and well, it wasn't. It was just going to be a little awkward and painful for him. "Yeah, sorry," he mumbled. "Look, um… just sit, and stay. I mean, unless you really want to leave, in which case, that's fine—"

"You're surprisingly awkward right now," Lucy said, cutting Bickslow off that time and making him freeze again.

"What? No," _Damn it, damn it, damn it. Walls, you are failing me right now._ "I'm not awkward."

Lucy laughed as she slowly came back to sit at the counter, and she shrugged as she placed her bag on the bench. "You're kinda awkward. Hmm, maybe it's because you're actually in love with me? My name begins with L after all," she teased, and as soon as the words had left her mouth, she desperately wanted to hit her head on the bench in front of her. Repeatedly. Her mouth apparently had a mind of its own today, and Lucy was seriously considering becoming a mute, just because she'd embarrassed herself more than enough in the space of five minutes than she needed for an entire lifetime.

"W-what?" Bickslow choked out. "No. I'm not… I'm not in love with you. That's ridiculous," he laughed, trying his best to make it seem normal and like it was actually amusing. "I'll be back."

"Oh god, I'm sorry… it was a joke… a terrible joke," Lucy mumbled as she looked down to hide her blush as Bickslow turned and quickly went back down the hall, and when she heard a door slam, she groaned and let her head hit the counter. _What the hell is going on here?_

Down in his bedroom though, Bickslow frantically paced the area at the foot of his bed, one hand over his mouth as he did so. He was so confused and just so worried about everything that he couldn't calm his racing heart. "Why would she say something like that?" he said quietly, still pacing. "Wait, no, why would she say I was awkward? Damn it, why am I so awkward at all? Fuck." He just didn't know what to worry about more; did he worry about the fact that he really was incredibly awkward around her, now that it wasn't just about getting her to open up and tell her that she was allowed to grieve and that he hated seeing her like that, or did he worry about the fact that she'd joked about him being in love with her, and he'd stood there and lied about it because he had no other choice?

 _Fuck_.

Everything was just falling apart so quickly, and Bickslow just didn't know what to do. In truth, he didn't know how to act around Lucy, because he didn't know how to have a normal conversation with her. How was he supposed to do that without wanting to slap himself in the head, especially when he was so worried about Lucy seeing through his walls any more than she already was, and that was something he didn't quite understand how it was possible.

But then Bickslow realised something; Lucy had almost instantly formed some sort of connection with his babies (and he knew, because the babies just happened to really like her, and it was both worrying and annoying), and the entire uncomfortable situation that was their conversation topic had been stemmed from what they had almost said. He needed to keep the babies away from Lucy if she really wanted to spend time with him, because he had a feeling she would ask them questions, and being the troublemakers they are, they would answer anything they could. Even for souls, they knew a hell of a lot about Bickslow and who he was.

He opened his bedroom door then, and silently he called the babies back into his room once he'd funnelled some magic back into them. Bickslow just hoped they wouldn't finish the sentence he'd cut off, or just say anything at all. He loved the little guys dearly, but right now, he just did not trust them to keep quiet around her, or at all, for that matter.

But after staring at the apparently frustrated souls (who knew they'd annoyed Bickslow) for a few more moments, Bickslow knew he'd have to eventually go back out into his living room. It was going to painful, uncomfortable, awkward, but it would have to be done.

* * *

"Wait, wait, wait," Bickslow choked out around his laughter, a hand out gesturing Lucy to pause in her story for just a moment as he tried to wrap his head around it so far. "So you're telling me that Natsu broke into your apartment to play strip poker with a cat?"

She nodded as she changed which foot she had folded under herself on the corner of the lounge. "Yeah," she laughed. "And somehow Happy always wins, even though all he wears is a cape."

"That is somehow both disturbing and entertaining."

"A little," she agreed before she sighed. "Anyway, I've been here for so long, I should probably go back to the guild before Mira thinks I've shopped myself to death or something."

As Lucy got up from the lounge, Bickslow quickly glanced over to the clock hanging in his kitchen, and his eyes went wide under his visor when he saw it was late in the afternoon. He could have sworn he'd only made lunch only half an hour ago, not nearly four. "Wow, yeah… I didn't realise that was the time," he mumbled, getting up to slowly follow her to his door.

"Neither did I, to be honest." She came to stop in front of the door and turned to face Bickslow again when he came up behind her. "I thought this was fun though," she said quietly with a soft smile. Even though all they'd done was spend basically the entire day on the lounge and talk about everything and anything, she really had had a lot of fun. It was all she'd wanted, too. She'd just wanted to spend time with him, and maybe just learn a bit more about Bickslow as a person (not that that had been a success, because he seemed to have dodged every single question about his life), and even after just another day with Bickslow, she again felt just that little bit better.

At that point, he was still the only person who could actually make her laugh, whether he'd meant to or not. For months, she'd had to laugh when she didn't want to and she'd had to be happy when all she'd wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. But with Bickslow, she didn't have to try; she didn't have to try and be happy, nor did she have to pretend to laugh at things when she didn't want to. With Bickslow, she felt like she could actually be herself. She wasn't worried about pretending and she wasn't worried about whether she looked happy, because with Bickslow, she felt happier than she had in a really long time. Of course, it helped that he was the only person who knew just how much she hurt on the inside.

"Yeah, me too," Bickslow smiled, and he actually wasn't lying. Just sitting on his lounge and laughing with Lucy for hours had made his day infinitely better, and he'd never expected any of it to happen. It wasn't what he'd planned on doing, that was for sure, but he was glad it had happened.

But as glad as he was that he'd spent his day with Lucy, he could only find himself wanting to tear down his walls even more. He'd almost stopped caring about what he said or how he acted, because it really was just too easy with Lucy. It had been too easy to just lose himself in the moment with her, to forget about almost everything else that made him want to avoid her completely.

Oh, but when he heard her laugh and he saw her smile and saw that they were so close to what he'd missed hearing and seeing for so long, every thought about making sure he kept his walls up and being careful not to say anything to make things even more awkward than they had once been all went to the back of his mind. With Lucy, it was just too easy for all of that to happen, because somehow, he also didn't have to worry as much about acting like the person everyone expected him to be. Just sitting and laughing on his lounge for hours, Bickslow had been able to act like someone else; he hadn't been the person that everyone in the guild knew – the one with the impenetrable walls (until Lucy, that was) – nor had he been the person that was hidden behind those walls. Instead, he was someone that was between the two. He was someone else entirely with Lucy, but it was enough to make him realise that he loved being able to act just that little bit more like the person he actually was.

It was when she was leaving did all of the thoughts and worries that had been pushed to the back of his mind come back and dominate his thoughts, because he became so painfully aware of just how much he really had enjoyed spending time with her. He'd enjoyed it too much, and it really wasn't helping him get over her. For so long, Bickslow had lived with the fact that he was never going to get her, and it didn't hurt. He'd accepted it, completely. But now, he couldn't help but want her just that little bit more, and it hurt just to know that she was almost within reach, but he couldn't do anything about it.

He couldn't do anything about it, because to Lucy, he was just a friend. He was just a person who was worried about her and cared about her and wanted her to be happy, and just really, really enjoyed spending time with her.

He just had to remember that the only reason anything had happened at all was because she hadn't been happy. He was just a means to get her to a point where she could help herself, and he was sure it had actually worked already.

"Hey, before you go…" he said quietly before Lucy turned back around to finally leave. "You seem a lot happier than you did a few days ago."

She smiled as she pulled the door open. "That's because I am."

"Found something that helps, huh?"

"Something like that," she shrugged. "I'll see you around, Bickslow." And before Bickslow even had a chance to ask what that something was, she smiled up at him again and gently closed the door behind herself. She had found something that helped, but she wasn't exactly going to tell Bickslow that that something was actually _him_ , not when she didn't quite understand everything herself.

* * *

 **So tomorrow's chapter will actually be the first Hidden (Day 2) chapter, and it will be going up at a similar time to this one. Works better with my schedule, anyway.**

 **Don't forget to read the introduction notes (Chapter 1), and if you liked this chapter, review/favourite/follow!**

 **See you guys tomorrow for the next chapter.**

 **\- April**


	6. (II) Maybe I Am, Maybe I'm Not

**Welcome to the start of Hidden! This one is... a little fun. Heheh.**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 4: HIDDEN  
**_ _ **MAYBE I AM, MAYBE I'M NOT**_

* * *

They say time flies when you're having fun, and for Lucy, that's exactly what happened. The weeks flew by in almost a blur, and before she knew it, Christmas was just a few more days away. Mira had already decorated the guild, and along with the rest of the town, everyone and everything was nearly bursting at the seams with joy for the holiday season.

With each day, Lucy had gotten happier and happier, and the pain she'd felt from having to sacrifice Aquarius for the sake of the guild – her friends, her family – was barely just a memory. The pain she'd felt in her chest all those months ago that had made her so negative and unable to see the light at the end of the road was just a thing of the past. She no longer felt like the fragile girl that felt alone in the world and just a little bit broken, nor did she feel like she was going to be miserable for the rest of her life because she thought no one cared.

She wasn't going to be miserable for the rest of her life, because as Lucy sat at the bar that morning as she usually did, she could honestly smile and say she was happy, and Lucy was certain it was all because of Bickslow. There had been so many days over the weeks and months where all she'd done was sit on his lounge all morning or all day and just laugh with him, and she really wouldn't have had it any other way. So quickly, the one person she never expected to be able to help and understand her the most had done just that, and she really, really loved him for just being able to do that for her.

But that was the problem: that she loved him for being there for her when she'd needed someone, and Lucy still wasn't entirely sure whether she was just a little too grateful for someone who had become one of her closest friends in such a short amount of time, or if she actually had fallen for him.

Was it even possible to fall in love with someone without any sort of romantic relationship? Or even a relationship at all? Because in all honesty, that was one thing Lucy also still wasn't sure about. What kind of relationship did they have? To Lucy, he was a friend – a really great one – but she had clue what she was to to Bickslow.

Even though she'd spent so much time with him over the last several weeks, Lucy still felt as if she knew nothing about who Bickslow was as a person. He had always so perfectly avoided answering any questions she asked about him, even when it just about what he liked to do in his spare time, and hell, even his favourite colour. It was like whenever Lucy wanted to learn more about him, he'd do anything he could in that moment do stop her from doing that. Lucy couldn't help but feel as if he was blocking her from getting closer to him; it was almost as if he was purposely keeping her out, and Lucy didn't understand why.

She'd let him know so much about herself, just in the hopes that opening up even more than she already had would show him that he could trust her, because what's what Lucy thought it came down to; she just didn't think Bickslow trusted her like she trusted him, and she really wanted him to. Lucy had never once thought she had given him a reason not to, and that hurt almost as much as knowing that she really might be in love with someone who quite clearly did not love her back.

It really wasn't like she wanted it to be that way. She didn't want to care about Bickslow as much as she did, because having just gotten over the worst of losing someone she cared about and having believed that things were never going to get better, Lucy was certain that losing someone like him would actually be the end for her. She hadn't wanted to care about someone as much as she did Bickslow, because she really wanted to give herself time to fully deal with all of her grief and emotions.

But all of it really had happened so fast, and Lucy had barely even had a moment to accept that she might have feelings for Bickslow before her mind – or maybe her heart –

had decided that she didn't just like him, but that she was in love with him. It was something she still didn't understand, even though she'd been trying to figure it out for weeks.

"So, Lucy, what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

Lucy looked up from where she had her head resting in her palm when she heard Mira's voice, and she shrugged at the eldest Strauss as she wiped down the bar in front of her with the rag. "I don't really have any," she said. "I'm just killing time here until I have to go, really, but that's not for another couple of hours."

"Oh? Where are you going?" Mira asked.

"Um… Akane Beach… for a couple of days… with Bickslow…" Lucy mumbled as she looked down to the bench again. She hadn't actually told anyone she was taking a trip out of town for a few days, just because it was with Bickslow, and they both knew that people would get the wrong idea about them actually taking a trip together (Lucy more than Bickslow, though).

But it was just a trip as friends – nothing more and nothing less – and by under no circumstances was it to be seen as anything even close to a romantic getaway. Because it really wasn't. Bickslow just wanted to show Lucy one of his favourite places in the world – the amusement park – and Lucy had obliged to going, regardless of the fact that her first thought had been that maybe he did like her just a little bit and wanted to do something nice away from Magnolia, but of course, Lucy knew that was a silly thought. The man didn't like her that way, and Lucy was okay with that for the most part, because she enjoyed spending time with Bickslow too much to let her feelings screw it all up.

"Oh? Is he taking you on a nice little retreat?" Mira giggled, and already, Lucy could see the tiny little heart-shaped sparkles in her bright blue eyes. It was exactly why they hadn't told anyone, but, Lucy did reason she needed to tell someone where she was going, and even if Mira was so wrong and she was never going to believe that it was anything other than a romantic trip, Lucy also knew she'd be able to think of something to keep her team from going out and searching for her. It would all be in the name of love, of course, and Lucy just had to think of a few tiny things to say that would make her lie for her. She'd get to that later though. "You two have been spending an awful lot of time together these days."

"No, nothing like that," Lucy sighed. "And I know we have, but you know… he's just a friend. He was helping me deal with Aquarius and I guess we just… I don't know, started spending time together after that," she said almost sadly. There was just a small part of her that wished they were something more than friends, but she did know nothing could ever come of that.

But Mira was right; they had been spending an awful lot of time together, and after just a few weeks of Bickslow being the only person who knew about Aquarius, Lucy had been ready to tell everyone else who mattered. If it hadn't even been for Bickslow, she wouldn't have gotten to that point and she would have been stuck believing that no one cared enough to help her when she'd needed help the most. Telling everyone else had almost been a turning point, because the support she received from her team and her friends had almost overwhelmed her. It had been the last thing she'd needed to do, and as soon as she'd gotten it off her chest, she'd actually felt relieved.

She would always miss Aquarius, just like she would always miss her parents, because they were all people she'd loved her entire life and for as long as she could remember. No amount of time was ever going to make Lucy miss any of them any less, but time had helped her grieve. She'd had time to accept it and move on from it, and to get her emotions and feelings in check.

Well, most of her feelings.

But that was all okay, because over the weeks, she'd been able to keep a hat on her feelings for Bickslow. She could spend her days with Bickslow either in one of their apartments or in the guild (something that had become easier to do once everyone else had heard about her losing Aquarius and understood the basics that they'd become friends out of it) and she could just enjoy the company and the joy she got from being around Bickslow; she could suppress that growing desire to just tell him how she felt and that she had somehow (possibly) fallen in love with him, or to just kiss him, even just to make him stop rambling sometimes, and god, did she really want to do that.

She just couldn't do any of that, because they were just friends.

"Just friends, huh?" Mira asked quietly, though that glint in her eyes was still there, and Lucy knew full well the demon didn't believe her when it came to her relationship (or lack thereof) with Bickslow.

"Just friends."

"But he could like you," Mira said with a shrug. "I mean, you can never really tell with Bickslow sometimes. You know, Lucy, he could be planning to surprise you with a declaration of how much he actually loves you."

Lucy sighed. "Trust me, he doesn't, and he's not." _Although it would be perfect if that's what it really was… wait, Lucy, stop. You know it's nothing like that. Damn it, Mira._ "But on a completely unrelated note… because Bickslow so doesn't like me. At all. And I don't like him like that, even a little bit," she cleared her throat before she took a very long sip from the glass of water in front of her. "How quickly can someone, say… fall in love?"

Lucy just had to ask someone for advice, and who better than the one person who knew almost everything there was to know about love and relationships? The ins-and-outs of it all. The woman lived for the idea of love, and setting up her guild mates, as it turns out. But seriously, Lucy needed some help. She'd never even come close to having any sort of romantic relationship, and all she knew was what she'd read in her countless romance novels.

Was it something that really did take months to develop and form – the love for another – or was it something that could happen in an instant? It worried Lucy that she really might have been the latter, but she just didn't know if it was possible. Was it that she really had fallen in love with Bickslow without any pretence of it ever going any further than what they had, or was it that she had mistaken her feelings for something else?

She just had no idea, and she needed someone to tell her if any of it was even possible.

"So this has nothing to do with Bickslow at all?" Mira asked cautiously, still not entirely believing Lucy.

"Not one bit," Lucy replied. "It's for a, uh… one of my stories. You know, I want to make it a little realistic, you know? And, um… well, I've never really had a boyfriend or actually loved anyone myself, so…" She was almost certain Natsu had set himself on fire (again) right in front of her, her face just felt that hot. She was never exactly the best at lying.

"A story, huh?"

"Yup."

The barmaid sighed as she placed the mug she was cleaning on the shelf behind her before turning once again, and leant forward over the bar just in front of Lucy. She shrugged as she lowered her chin to rest in her palms. "Depends on the person, really," she said softly. "For some people it can be almost instantly, and they'll know it. You know, like when they meet their one true love; the one that's perfect for them."

Lucy nodded as she watched Mira begin to smile softly, her head tilting every so slightly to the side as she already began to get lost in her thoughts. Lucy could only imagine the inside of Mira's head being a Valentine's wonderland, with, of course, hints of darkness.

"For others, though," Mira continued, that sparkle in her eyes getting ever brighter. "It could be something that happens as soon as they meet that person, but they won't realise it for a while. It could even be something that takes months, maybe even years to happen."

The blonde couldn't stop herself from groaning and dropping her head to the counter then, only to have everyone around her momentarily pause their conversations to look at her in confusion.

Why couldn't Mira give her a clear answer? _Why couldn't she just tell me…_ her thoughts trailed off when she realised that the answer she'd wanted from Mira was one that Mira couldn't give her. Lucy realised that in essence, she'd wanted someone to tell her whether she was actually in love with Bickslow, and that was something only Lucy herself could figure out. She could sense that she knew the answer – that it was simultaneously somewhere deep inside of her and right in front of her face – and she'd known it all along, but maybe, just maybe, she was having such a hard time finding that answer, just because she hadn't completely accepted it.

And maybe it was her unwavering certainty about Bickslow's lack of feelings for her that was making it impossible for Lucy to accept her own feelings. Or perhaps it was the fact she was scared of what was going to happen if she did actually accept that she'd fallen for him, because she knew she'd get hurt.

So did it even matter when or how she had? She'd never really experienced anything like it before, but she knew enough about the entire love conundrum to know that it can happy any time, with any person, and it can happen when you least expect it. Or, in Lucy's case, when she doesn't want it to happen. Love at first sight, or a love that develops over countless months or years; it was random. Lucy knew all of that herself, so just why had she needed to ask Mira about it? Everything she'd told her, Lucy had known already. Just because she hadn't fallen in love before or had a boyfriend didn't mean she knew absolutely nothing about it.

Maybe it was all because she was trying to convince herself to actually accept what had happened – that she'd fallen for Bickslow when she probably shouldn't have.

"There's no story, is there?" Mira asked softly, gently squeezing Lucy's shoulder as she slowly lifted her head from the bench, only to drop it heavily again to one palm.

Lucy shook her head. Mira had known all along, just letting Lucy go on with her story. Granted, Lucy could see that it probably wasn't a very hard lie to see through, and if the roles had been reversed, she, too, would have assumed the story was more or less her life.

But was Lucy actually ready to completely accept the truth she he almost been avoiding? Probably not. Would she ever be ready? Also, probably not. But did she have to accept it at all? Probably, yeah. That's just how you move on from things; accepting whatever it was.

"So I'm guessing this really is about Bickslow?" Mira asked again, just as softly.

"What's this about Bicks?" Evergreen suddenly chimed in, sitting herself down on the stool next to Lucy and leaving Elfman alone down the over end of the bar.

Lucy had to suppress another groan. "N-nothing," she squeaked, feeling her cheeks heat up once again.

"Oh, come on," Evergreen probed. "What did the idiot do this time?"

"He didn't do anything."

"That's the point, isn't it?" Mira giggled.

"Mira!"

Evergreen turned her attention to Mira for a moment. "Huh?" she mumbled, before turning back to Lucy. "Alright, what _didn't_ he do?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," Lucy squeaked again. She, under no circumstances, wanted to be talking about the fact that she quite possibly really was in love with Bickslow, with Evergreen (or Mira for that matter) of all people. She was one of his best friends, and regardless of how accepting his team had been of their newfound friendship, Lucy still didn't trust Evergreen to keep that particular information to herself. "Now please—"

"Come on, Lucy," Mira interrupted, almost stamping her feet in her annoyance with the blonde. "Just say it already." She was getting frustrated with Lucy completely dodging it, now that she'd all but admitted that it was in fact about Bickslow. From Mira's standpoint, it wasn't hard to figure out that she actually did love Bickslow (or at least she _might_ ).

"I don't know what you want me to say!"

"You know exactly what to say."

Evergreen continued to look between the two. "Can someone please tell me what's going on? Do I need to go kick his ass or—"

"No!" Lucy cried out. She didn't need Bickslow finding out that anything was going on – it was the last thing she needed, actually. "It just…" She dropped her head to the counter with another groan. "It doesn't matter," she mumbled. It didn't matter because he didn't like her at all. Her feelings were just bound to go nowhere.

Mira let out a quiet giggle at her friend once again. She could tell Lucy wasn't exactly dealing with it well, but that was okay. That's where Mira could put her expert matchmaking skills to use. "Lucy," she said softly as she leant down towards the bar. "Do you love Bickslow?"

The blonde couldn't even begin to comprehend the sound that Evergreen made then, and Lucy herself couldn't do anything herself other than sigh into the counter. Mira just had to ask it, didn't she? She just couldn't drop it at all and completely ignore it?

No, of course not. It was Mira, and if anything, Lucy realised it was her own fault to begin with. If she hadn't mentioned she was going to Akane Resort with him for a few days, then Mira wouldn't have assumed that the two liked each other, even a little bit. If she hadn't asked whether it was even possible to fall in love quickly (something she knew the answer to already, because she was becoming more and more certain that she'd been one of the unlucky ones to fall – and fall hard – quickly, yet not realise it completely for a while), then she wouldn't have had to lie about it being for a story, and more importantly, Mira wouldn't have been asking if she actually did love Bickslow.

Because that was the important question.

But it had to be answered. She had to accept it to be able to move on from it. She knew it.

"I… maybe," she muttered after a long pause where the two women stared at her and awaited her answer. "Probably," she sighed.

It was half of the truth. No maybes, or probablys, because she had fallen for him, and it was hard and painful and she'd have to get over that.

And with another half-sob, Evergreen quickly wrapped her arms around Lucy's shoulders to hug her as best she could. "Oh, you poor soul."

* * *

"So, what do you want to do first?" Lucy asked as she closed her hotel door behind her and turned to look towards Bickslow, leaning on the wall opposite her door with his arms folded.

He shrugged. "Whatever you want to do," he said, pushing himself off from the wall to follow her down the hall. "Casino is open all night, and the amusement park doesn't close until late—"

"It's already nearly 6pm. We can do that tomorrow," Lucy interrupted. "Last time I came here, I never actually went to the amusement park, so I want to enjoy it when I have more time."

"Fair enough," Bickslow shrugged again. "Well, um… we could go find a restaurant or something," he mumbled.

Lucy giggled as they slowly made their way down the first flight of stairs. "Are you asking me out to dinner?" She knew he wasn't, because Bickslow didn't like her like that (and oh, did she know). It was just that Bickslow almost had a habit of saying things that could be taken as him asking her out on a date of sorts, and she enjoyed teasing him about it far too much. Of course, she hadn't liked doing it at first, but after that first time he'd made it seem like he was asking her out on a date and she'd made the mistake of thinking that it was actually what he'd been doing, she'd had to find a way to hide her disappointment after hearing that it was nothing of the sort. Joking about it had become that way of hiding her disappointment, and, it got easier once she realised it made Bickslow incredibly awkward and flustered for a few short moments once it got pointed out that his words could have had a different meaning to what he'd intended.

So when his foot slipped on the stairs and he had to steady himself on the bannister to stop himself from falling, all because of what Lucy had said, she began to laugh even more.

"Nothing like that," he almost squeaked, his voice cracking ever so slightly and he felt like a teenager all over again.

It didn't help that he would absolutely love to take her out to dinner – on an actual date – but he knew he couldn't. He'd long stopped watching his words around Lucy, just because it was easier to almost be himself around her. He still had his walls, and he'd always known that they'd been slipping the entire time, but he just didn't care anymore. He wasn't as worried about everything as he once had been, because he knew that he'd be able to keep them up enough to hide who he really was. More than anything, he didn't want Lucy to see the person hidden behind the visor.

And it was all because he'd enjoyed the last two months almost far too much – he'd enjoyed having Lucy around far too much, and he didn't want to lose that. It didn't matter that he couldn't help himself from falling just that little bit more in love with her each day, or missing her and her company when either of them were out on jobs with their teams. Even when he'd made a point of keeping Lucy out and stopping her from getting too close – like he did with everyone – she was still the one person who had ended up getting closer to him than anyone else had in years. She had almost wormed her way through every single crack in his walls, and he'd let her do that. He'd let her get just that little bit closer to who he really was, and Bickslow had come to realise he didn't mind it.

But he really had been falling in love with her just that little bit more each day, and it amazed him that he even could. He'd always thought that once you fall in love with someone, that was it; you couldn't love them any more than you already did. Instead, you could only stop loving them.

With Lucy, though, he'd been proved wrong. He undoubtedly loved her more than he did two months earlier, and he was almost convinced that he wouldn't stop loving her. And that was something he'd had to accept, too, just like he'd had to accept that he'd fallen in love with her in the first place. He'd had to accept his feelings for her so he could try and get over her.

But the last two months had made that damn near impossible, and even when it was all he'd wanted to do for so long, he really didn't mind all that much. And maybe he'd never quite love someone as much as loved Lucy, or maybe he wouldn't love anyone else at all, but that was okay, wasn't it? It was okay for Bickslow to never love anyone else, and that's what he had to accept. Besides, even if he did ever manage to find someone else to fall in love with, there was no telling that he'd let them in and take down his walls for that person, so maybe it all would work out for the best if he could never stop himself from loving Lucy.

And if that was the case, that would be okay. Just because there was a small part of Bickslow that wanted to be with Lucy, the rest of him knew it would never happen. It never _could_ happen, and that was okay. He didn't need it to happen. He could be in love with someone and still be happy, right? He could see her fall in love with someone else two, five, ten years down the track and see her be happy with that person, and be happy himself. Of course he could, because the life that he knew she'd ultimately want and get wasn't the life that he could ever live or give her. Bickslow wasn't the type of person to settle down with someone and have the family and kids and all of that, at least he didn't think so. He could see Lucy doing all of that eventually, but in every scenario his brain could come up with (and there'd been a lot of them over the months), he was never that someone that Lucy would have all of that with.

And that was all okay. He didn't need any of that. He didn't need to constantly worry about someone getting too close and hurting himself; he didn't need the fuss of being in a relationship, not when he could get almost everything he needed from relationships of the meaningless kind. No attachment, no connection of any form, and most importantly, no love or letting anyone in.

Everything would just work out for the best if he didn't have to let anyone in.

But he'd let Lucy in more than he had anyone else. Still, though, he was convinced that everything would be fine. He could continue to spend almost too much time with her, listening to her laugh and seeing her smile, because to a point, seeing Lucy be happy when he'd seen her be miserable for so long was almost enough to make Bickslow happy. Hell, just being around Lucy those days was enough to make him almost happy, because she was the only person he felt somewhat comfortable enough around.

It was why he could not care less about his words, but it was also why he had an awful habit of slipping up occasionally, like he had then. He'd honestly done it so many times, and each time he said something stupid, he really did want to just become a mute for the rest of his life. It was like his mouth was against him, constantly saying things that made it sound like he was asking her out on a date of some sort, and really, that just wasn't the case at all (regardless of how much he wanted to).

It was almost bad enough that when they'd checked into the hotel not even an hour earlier, the hotel receptionist had asked if he'd wanted to upgrade his room to the honeymoon suite, and Bickslow, under no circumstances, wanted to do that. Lucy had found the entire thing hilarious, of course, because it wasn't even the first time they'd done something in public or gone anywhere and they'd been assumed a couple. Couldn't a guy just be really good friends with a girl?

It was like the universe was rubbing everything in his face.

But hey, he made a point of keeping it that way. Lucy was just a friend, who he happened to be in love with. It was all fine.

"So. Do you want to get dinner or what?" he asked, only slightly scowling at her laughter that was aimed at his embarrassment from his blunder of words.

"Sure," she said as she shrugged, continuing to walk down the stairs. "You're buying, though."

He rolled his eyes under his visor. "Of course I am."

* * *

Lucy tucked her hair behind her ears to stop the strands from blowing in her face too much with the cool sea breeze.

They'd decided on getting dinner at a bar and bistro right on the beach, partly because it was one of the few places in the town that wasn't outrageously formal or romantic and had a dress code, and partly because it had a nice view of the sunset (which is what Lucy enjoyed, not so much Bickslow then).

She turned her attention from the sunset in question when a waitress came up, her notepad and pen in her hands as she looked down to the two at the table. "Can I get you two any drinks for this evening?"

Bickslow hadn't even bothered looking at the menu. When it came to what he drank, he'd never been particularly fussy, given that there were only a few things he drank at all. Tonight, though, he just wasn't really in the mood for much at all. "Just whatever you have on tap," he said while looking up to the waitress, sitting back and folding his arms before he looked to Lucy. "What about you, Cosplayer?"

She hummed in thought as she looked over the drinks menu, the cocktails in particular. Unlike Bickslow (and the majority of the guild), she wasn't really in to the whole beer or hard liquor thing, and she never had been. She didn't, however, mind the odd cocktail, and as she saw one of her favourite drinks on the menu, the corner of her lips lifted up into the faintest of smirks. "I think I'll have…" She paused for just a moment as she placed the menu down before turning to smile up at the waitress who was waiting patiently. "Sex on the beach," she said almost sweetly finally.

Bickslow all but choked on the air he was breathing as the words left his mouth, and he could barely hear the waitress cheerfully say she'll bring their drinks right over before she turned and went to take another table's order. _Sex on the beach? Really?_ "I swear you're just fucking with me now," he mumbled, a hand slapping his own chest as he tried to regain his composure.

"Not at all," Lucy said with an innocent smile before she turned to look back to the sunset over the water.

It was a lie, mostly. She really was just fucking with him, and if it wasn't actually her favourite drink, she would have ordered it anyway just to see what his reaction would be. Granted, part of her had hoped that the Bickslow who had always teased her would make a comeback, because if anything, she had given him a perfect opportunity to do so, but that part of Bickslow had been strangely absent since they'd become friends. It wasn't like she didn't like the person Bickslow was around her now – hell, she'd fallen in love with that Bickslow – but she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss the constant teasing and the crude jokes, just a little bit.

Seeing him flustered was still just as good a reaction, though, and if she wasn't so certain and convinced that Bickslow didn't like her in the same way she did, she'd assume all of his awkward moments were because he was just shy around her, because he liked her.

But as Lucy looked to the beach, her mind wandered to Bickslow. More importantly, it went to Bickslow on a beach, and her on a beach, and well, her _on_ Bickslow… on a beach, and she could feel heat amass somewhere other than her cheeks. Was she quite literally thinking about fucking Bickslow? Yes, yes she was, and even though it wasn't the first time she'd thought about it (almost embarrassingly, considering her thoughts had never once come close to being about that with anyone else), she knew she really should not be.

Because it was never going to happen. Ever. Because Bickslow didn't like her, and Lucy didn't want to be just another one-night stand to him.

Of course, Lucy didn't know that Bickslow's inner voice was screaming at him to stop picturing Lucy naked on a beach, or naked at all, really.

"Um, so anyway," she mumbled then, looking back to Bickslow before she took a small sip from the glass of water in front of her. "Did you, um, talk to Ever at all today? Before we left? Or maybe even Mira?"

Bickslow turned back as he stifled a sigh of relief, being incredibly thankful (though confused) for the subject change. "No, why?" he asked.

"Oh, no reason at all." _Just wanted to make sure they didn't tell you that I'm in love with you, because that would just be disastrous._

"Okay, odd…" Bickslow mumbled before he took a drink from his own glass before he cleared his throat. "Weird question time."

"All of your questions are weird," she giggled.

Bickslow rolled his eyes. "Yours are worse." And they were, really. He was convinced Lucy actually out-weirded him sometimes. "Anyway, Aquarius' key…" he began.

"What about it?" she asked, her interest suddenly rising again.

"Well, you can't really do anything with it now, right?"

Lucy shook her head. "It's essentially just a piece of metal," she mumbled, a small frown forming on her lips. There was no magic left in it, because it broken, and it would never be able to open a gate again.

"Right," Bickslow said, nodding to himself. "And it can't ever be fixed, to, you know, work again?" He already knew for a fact that it couldn't, because she'd told him all of it before. He just needed to hear it all again.

"Never," she whispered, feeling the pain in her chest sting for just a short moment.

"Sorry," Bickslow mumbled. He could see the pain resurfacing on her face, and he couldn't help but feel guilty. "Anyway, since you can't—"

"And here are both of your drinks," the waitress from before suddenly cut in, a wide smile on her face as she gently placed both of their drinks down on the table. Clasping her hands together quickly, she looked between the two and said, "I'll be back in a few moments to see if you're ready to order."

"Yeah, thanks," Bickslow mumbled again, moving his drink to the side as Lucy began to twirl the green umbrella around in her own drink. "Anyway, as I was saying," he turned his attention back to Lucy as he cleared his throat quietly. "Since you can't use it anymore, I was wondering if I could… do something with it."

Lucy looked up then, a thin brow arched slightly. "Do something?" she echoed.

"Don't ask me what that something is, because I kinda wanted it to be a surprise," he continued. That something was actually part of the reason he'd wanted to visit the resort in the first place, and why he'd wanted to bring Lucy with him. It wasn't just because he really did love the amusement park (and the casino for that matter), but there was someone and something else in Akane Beach that wanted to see, and it was actually all for Lucy, which is why he needed to keep it a secret. "But I mean, I know you still take it with you wherever you go, so if you don't want to let go of it, then that's fine." There were in fact other ways he could go about doing what he wanted to do. Bickslow just thought that the actual key would make it all that much nicer.

With her brow furrowed slightly, Lucy reached into her small bag that her key pouch was sitting in, and pulled out the broken key that she had indeed been carrying out wherever she went. It was just a habit, really, because she took her keys everywhere. As she turned the key over in her hands, she wondered if she could actually let go of it. After all, it really was just a broken piece of metal; it was just a reminder.

She looked up again and tentatively held her hand out with the key for just a moment, only to pull it back ever so slightly at the last moment. "Will it be damaged any more?" she asked, staring at the key in her hand as she held it over the table.

"No," he answered.

"Whatever it is you want to do… will I like it?"

"That's the plan." In truth, Bickslow hoped she loved it.

There was another drawn out moment as she stared at the now dull metal, and then she sighed with a nod, finally handing it to Bickslow as he gently took it from her hand and placed it in one of his own pockets.

Sure, it was just a broken key, but it was Aquarius' broken key, and it still meant a lot to her – even for a piece of metal. But, she trusted Bickslow, and in the time they'd been friends, she'd come to know that he could be incredibly thoughtful. Lucy knew that he wouldn't do anything as stupid to damage it any further, and whatever it is he was planning, it would be for her benefit. She knew that.

And even though she could feel the anxiety rising within her about giving up just a key, she knew it would be okay. Whatever it was Bickslow wanted to do with it, she knew she'd love.

"Are you sure?" Bickslow asked carefully, looking to Lucy as she picked up the dinner menu and began to read over it slowly.

She smiled as she looked over the top of the folded card. "I'm sure," she said. "Now, what shall I order…"

* * *

 **Welp. Yeah... not so slow anymore. Whoops.**

 **Thank you guys for the reviews on the last chapter, and just reading, even. I hope you all liked this one, as usual, and I'd love to see what you guys thought of this one since it jumped a bit. Oh well.**

 **I shall see you all tomorrow!**

 **\- April**


	7. (II) Dangerous Waters

**Super huge shout-out and thank you to _Bixlu Lover_ for helping me with these chapters!**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 5: HIDDEN  
DANGEROUS WATERS**_

* * *

A knock on her hotel door had Lucy quickly scrambling to pull her beige shorts up her smooth legs, and before she even had all of the buttons at the front done up that went all the way up to her waist, she opened her door quickly and looked up with a wide grin, already knowing it was Bickslow. "Hey," she greeted. "Sorry, lost track of time and slept in a little."

"Kinda early anyway. Don't worry about it," Bickslow mumbled as he followed her into her room, one hand gently pushing the door closed behind himself and the other running back through his hair.

"Oh, well," Lucy quickly tucked her light blue singlet under her shorts before she finished doing the top buttons up, not caring that she was still getting dressed even though Bickslow was in the room (he didn't see anything, so it was fine – not that she'd mind if he saw anything). When she looked towards the open glass doors that led to her balcony, seeing Bickslow just disappear through them and behind the curtains that covered the windows, she quickly followed him out, picking up her sandals from by the foot of her bed as she went. "Do you mind if we stop by somewhere before we go off to the amusement park? Haven't had breakfast yet," she asked.

Bickslow shrugged, turning to lean his hips against the railing on the sunny balcony with his arms folded across his chest. "Fine by me."

"Thanks," she said with a smile as she sat down on one the wicker lounges to pull her shoes on.

When she looked back up, it was the first time she actually took notice of Bickslow's attire: plain black shorts that Lucy could only imagine hung almost deliciously low on his hips (something she'd found to quite enjoy when she turned up at his door on multiple occasions to find him shirtless), and an equally plain striped tee. It wasn't actually the clothes that intrigued her the most this time though, because Lucy had grown used to seeing Bickslow wear normal clothes. Instead, it was the lack of a visor.

Every time Lucy had spent time with Bickslow, he'd made a point of wearing it. If she visited when he'd yet to get dressed or he hadn't been expecting her, he would always make a point of putting it on only mere moments after she'd arrived. It was something she'd asked about in the past – whether it was necessary he always wear it – but he'd never given her a clear answer, always saying that it was just easier sometimes and he preferred to have it on occasionally.

It had always been something she'd been a little frustrated by, just because you could always tell so much about how someone was feeling by looking in their eyes or just at their face, and she couldn't do that with Bickslow. It was almost as if he was always hiding behind that stupid piece of metal, and Lucy really didn't like it.

If anything, Lucy just didn't think it was fair for Bickslow to hide behind his visor, because even when he tried to do so discreetly – the dodging of questions and changing subjects when it came to her asking about his life – Lucy had always known that what he was doing was hiding. He was purposely keeping her out, and although she'd never been able to understand why he felt the need to do so or what she'd done to deserve it, she knew she couldn't do anything about it. It didn't matter that Bickslow had been able to see through to everything Lucy had been hiding, and it didn't matter that she'd long since given up on trying to hide things from Bickslow, because no matter what, he'd been able to see through every single one of her walls. He'd always been able to tell when she was feeling even the slightest bit down. She had yet to actually find out the reason as to how he could do it.

But despite his ever constant ability to be able to tell when something was wrong, it was like he couldn't see how she felt about him. It was the one thing he couldn't pick up on, and it wasn't exactly like she was keeping it hidden. Granted, she didn't want Bickslow to know because she knew her feelings weren't ever going to be reciprocated, but she really wasn't making a point of keeping it that hidden. She just didn't see the point, because he couldn't see it either way.

Unless, of course, he'd known how she felt the entire time, and was just ignoring it and letting her sort it out on her own instead of completely shutting her down and breaking her heart. Lucy knew that's what would happen, because having the person she loves tell her that there would never be anything between them would crush her, even though she already knew it was the truth. But, if that was the case – that he did know how she felt – then she was grateful. She just didn't know if that's what it was.

And that was the problem: she never knew.

But today, Bickslow wasn't wearing his visor, and that made Lucy glad, for whatever reason that may be. She liked to think it was because he was maybe getting to a point where he'd let her in like she had with him. Her heart warmed with the idea.

With a slow smile spreading on her lips, she stood up and pulled the elastic band from her wrist to tie her hair up – a simple pony tail to keep it mostly away from her neck in the hot weather. Despite it being the near middle of winter, Akane Beach seemed to have similar weather patterns to Tenrou Island, and already early in the morning, it was hot and sticky and just gross.

It was a welcome change from Magnolia, though. Even if it was just for a few days.

"No visor?" she asked finally, looping her hair through the band three times with turns of her wrists.

He shrugged, finally turning his head away from where he'd been looking down along the beach, only a few floors below. "Do you mind?" he responded. In truth, it wasn't about Bickslow finally opening up and taking down his walls for Lucy – his physical ones, anyway. Instead, it was about the fact that it was going to be fucking hot that day, and wearing a hood and piece of metal on his face can get more than a little uncomfortable with the rising mercury.

It had never been like he'd had to wear the visor, either. Not for years, anyway. Of course, he'd kept wearing it as a safety precaution, but it had eventually come to be a part of his walls he kept up to keep everyone out. Hiding his face behind a piece of metal had become so easy over the years that it was almost scary to go without it, even for a few hours here and there. There were always times he did go without it, of course – at home alone, occasionally when he was just with his team, swimming; those kinds of things – but when it came to Lucy, it was very different. It was different because he was so desperately trying to keep her at arm's length, and it was fucking hard.

He'd spent far too long deciding whether he was going to wear his visor that day, and he really didn't know if it would be okay to go without it around Lucy. She knew nothing about his magic – would she trust him without it? Even if she did, would she just prefer him to wear it? Hell, he'd had people like that in his life before. He should be used to it. It was just that he wanted Lucy to be comfortable around him without it, because if anything, it was a test; if he could last the day without it and manage to keep the vast majority of his walls up (or what was left of them around Lucy), then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have to worry about wearing it around her all the time.

He could hope, right?

"Not going to turn me into a puppet unexpectedly?" she asked, a mischievous smirk crossing her lips. At the sight of Bickslow scowling suddenly, she let out a giggle. It was something she, as weird as it was, had thought about seeing far too much.

 _Hell fucking no._ "No," he grumbled.

"Then nope, no problems," she laughed again before she quickly turned and went back into her hotel room. "Now come on," Lucy beckoned him into the room as she picked her small bag up from her bed. "I'm starving."

* * *

Bickslow couldn't contain his laughter as he leant against one of the rollercoaster supports. He didn't even care that the tourists and everyone else that walked past him on the busy path in the middle of the amusement park were giving him strange looks, most likely thinking about how he was being a terrible boyfriend or something along those lines, even though it wasn't the case at all (though if he did have a girlfriend, ignoring the fact that he was certain and completely fine with being eternally single, he'd still be a terrible boyfriend). He just didn't care, because the situation was far too amusing.

And it really shouldn't be funny at all, but as soon as Lucy had run from the rollercoaster cart as it came to a stop and made her way over to the nearest rubbish bin (which was thankfully right by the exit for the ride), only to lean over it and empty the contents of her stomach, Bickslow just couldn't stop himself from cackling. Sure, he felt sorry for her, and he was a little worried about whether or not she was okay, but it was mostly just damn fucking entertaining.

He wiped his tears from under an eye when his laughter had died down, and straightened up when Lucy finally left the rubbish bin. "You alright?" he finally asked the red-faced blonde beside him as they slowly merged back onto the crowded path.

Lucy nodded while she kept her head down, too embarrassed to look up to see the people who she presumed to be judging her, and only silently taking the water bottle that he'd been holding on to for her.

"Was it really that bad?" Bickslow asked, still finding it all too amusing. He'd never found that particular rollercoaster to be one to make anyone sick. Sure, it had a hell of a lot of loops and twists and rolls, but still, unless Lucy had a severe case of motion sickness, which he really didn't think she had considering he'd sat on a train with her for multiple hours just to get to Akane beach, he didn't understand why she felt the need to vomit into a bin right after getting off.

Then again, he was probably a little biased because it was his favourite ride (well, second favourite) in the entire place, and he'd ridden it far too many times to count.

"Well, yeah," she nodded again as they kept walking, and she could feel the heat on her cheeks increase, and it wasn't because of the near scorching weather, even though the sun was just about ready to set. "Remember when I said I never got a chance to visit the park last time I came here?" she asked.

"Yeah…"

"Well, it's kind of the truth. This is actually the first time I've been to an amusement park in my entire life…"

Bickslow almost stopped walking as he turned to look down at her, an eyebrow arched in amazement. "Seriously?" he asked incredulously.

"Seriously."

"Took your theme park virginity then, huh?" Bickslow had to look away then, much like Lucy did when she was certain her face was actually on fire. _Why the fuck did I say that? Jesus fucking Christ, man._ "S-sorry," he mumbled, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. His mouth had betrayed him again.

"I-it's fine," she muttered, though she couldn't stop her mind from wandering to other virginities Bickslow could take; namely one in particular. Someone had to take it eventually, so why not Bickslow? Of course, that one was just never going to happen, and she really needed to stop thinking about it so much. With great effort Lucy pulled her mind form her less than expectable thoughts. "So, um… I'm pretty happy with never going on another rollercoaster for the next few years," she said, forcing a laugh and a subject change.

He chuckled quietly. "Yeah, well, now it makes sense." Granted, the first time he went on a rollercoaster, he'd done the exact same thing she had, so it really did make sense. "I'm guessing you don't really want to do much else here then?"

"Not really, to be honest."

"Good," Bickslow grinned before he quickly took one of her hands in his own and pulled her down another winding path through the theme park that was busy with as many people as every other street. "One more ride before we go."

She stifled a squeal of surprise as she let him pull her through the crowd, a prickling heat once again infusing her cheeks as his hand engulfed hers. "Wait, Bicks, no more rides," she almost groaned. She couldn't bear to stomach the thought of another nausea-inducing ride.

"I promise you'll like this one."

And so giving up before she could even really protest it too much; she continued to let Bickslow drag her to the ride that she would supposedly like, only while hoping it wasn't another ride that had her going upside down every five seconds.

When she finally realised what ride Bickslow was leading her to, she stopped and looked up at him with a slight smile. "A ferris wheel?" she asked, only seeing Bickslow shrug before she looked back up to the ginormous ferris wheel with the blinking lights that was turning slowly.

"Yeah," he said. "It's almost relaxing. Plus, it's one of my favourite rides here, and if this makes you throw up, then I really will be surprised."

She blushed as she turned away slightly, her eyes spying the queue to get on the ride before she quickly turned on her heels to make her way over to it. "Shut up," she mumbled, knowing full well that Bickslow was following behind her. She looked over her shoulder when she stopped in the line, and up to Bickslow who stood with his hands in his pockets and looking at something over the top of her head. "So why do you like this one so much?" she asked. She'd never actually been on a ferris wheel before, but she couldn't see how something relaxing could be one of Bickslow's favourites.

"You'll see," Bickslow replied, shrugging again before he lifted his arms to gently reach out for the backs of Lucy's shoulders to push her forward when he saw the line moving in front of her. "Come on, line's moving."

"Fine, fine. I'm going."

When they eventually made it to the beginning of the queue and were let onto the open hexagonal carriage, no windows or walls, just posts and a roof with seats on every side, Bickslow had to raise a hand to steady Lucy as she stepped on and the carriage rocked slightly. She'd been a little light on her feet since coming off the rollercoaster earlier, and the last thing Bickslow wanted was for her to fall or anything.

As it began to turn, just enough so that the next people in the queue could get on the ferris wheel, Lucy turned to look over towards the beach, trying her best to see past the palm trees and gardens that separated the theme park grounds from the actual beach. Sighing when she realised she had no chance of being able to see anything past the trees and the restaurants that lined the foreshore until she was higher up, she looked back to Bickslow opposite her.

"So what did you want to do after this?" she asked.

"Well, I have to go do something—"

"Do something?"

The corner of his mouth lifted up into a smirk. "Do something," he said again. Lucy's curiosity was one thing that had always intrigued him to say the least. But, even though he knew she would probably love to know what that particular something was, he wasn't going to give in; it was a secret. "So while I'm gone," Bickslow continued, only pausing for a moment as the wheel turned again. "You can go and do whatever you want. I shouldn't be more than half an hour, so after that we could get dinner, if you wanted."

"Alright then," Lucy sighed, momentarily giving up on finding out what Bickslow was being secretive about that time. "Dinner at the same place as last night?"

"If you want."

She nodded as she let her fingers glide over her keys in her small pouch in her bag. "So if you'll be half an hour or so, did you just want to meet there at 6:30?" she asked.

"That works." The wheel moved again with a lurch, and as they moved up above the tops of the restaurants and the palm trees, he leant back on the small bench seat to have his arms resting on the tops of the backrest on each side of him, and turned to look towards the setting sun.

It was why he loved that particular ferris wheel so much. The views of the beach at any time of day from high above the ground were spectacular, but at sunset, it was even more majestic. It was almost serene to Bickslow, just sitting up there and watching the sun go down over the ocean, and he could forget about everything that worried him.

And as they moved higher, Lucy finally turned to look towards the setting sun, and her mouth hung open slightly in awe as she moved forward to rest her elbows on the edge while she knelt on the bench seat.

It was beautiful, really; the way the few clouds in the sky looked purple, and how the usually so clear blue water below was reflecting the colour of the clouds, making it an even more scenic sight. The orange and pink and red sky before her was just the icing on the cake, and as she watched from where she sat, Lucy could feel the world crumble away around her.

"It's beautiful," Lucy murmured, still completely transfixed on the view. She could only think that this was why Bickslow had brought her up there, and it seemed an almost perfect way to wrap up their amusement park adventure.

"Yeah…" Bickslow muttered.

He knew it was beautiful, he really did, but as he glanced to the side to look at the blonde staring at the horizon, her face and hair and everything around her tinted with the colours of the sunset, he felt his heart skip a beat at the sight she made. Bickslow didn't think the sunset was that beautiful. Not compared to Lucy, anyway, because to him, Lucy was the most beautiful thing – person – up there. He was just so fucking head over heels for the girl who outshone the most beautiful of sunsets that it wasn't even funny anymore.

To Bickslow, Lucy had always been the most beautiful person in the room; she was bright, breathtaking, stunning, radiant, gorgeous, brilliant. She was perfect; she was Lucy. Every little thing she did, Bickslow had come to love her even more because of it. He was convinced that there was nothing she could ever do – or he could do, for that matter – to make him stop loving her, and as fine as he was with that, it was just annoying.

She was so close, and it was so tempting sometimes to just tell her how he felt because each day it really did get harder to keep everything hidden behind his almost godforsaken walls, but he knew he couldn't. He cared about keeping Lucy in his life as a friend far too much to risk screwing it all up.

And it was almost romantic, just sitting up there on the slowly moving ferris wheel and watching the sun set over the ocean together, but that was all it could ever be: _almost_ romantic. It was all half of the things they did together could ever be, and that was enough for him.

* * *

Bickslow took a step back and away from the archway as an elderly couple made their way through it, and nodding his head slightly when they smiled at him and walked past, still just a little uncomfortable without his visor; he made his way into the small store that was on the second floor of the casino.

He quickly made his way through the dim room and past the glass display cabinets in the centre of the room and on each wall, and over to the counter by the back wall. Bickslow leant forward to rest his elbows on the edge of the glass top that made the counter, and as he waited for the store's owner to come out from the back room that was just through a set of gold curtains, he looked down to the wares below him. Sparkling rings, bracelets, necklaces, plus other highly exquisite pieces of jewellery, most of them laden with gems and diamonds of all colours and sizes. Bickslow had visited the store before, given that he'd known the owner for an incredibly long time, but each time he came back, he was always amazed at what the guy could create.

A man with greying hair streaked with blue stuck his head around the corner and through the half open curtains, and a wide grin split his face as he pushed his glasses down his nose just a tiny bit. "Bickslow, my boy!" the man exclaimed, causing Bickslow to look up with an equally as wide grin. "I'll be out in just a moment."

"Yeah, yeah," Bickslow nodded before the man could disappear through the curtains and to the back room again. "No problem, Cas," he mumbled.

With a few more minutes to kill, Bickslow pushed himself up from where he leant against the counter and slowly went around the small store to see what else was on display. He came across a golden and elegant watch in one cabinet as he put his hands in his pockets, and as he took note of the details on the metallic winding vines that made up the band, his eyebrows went up slightly before he turned to go and look at the other pieces of jewellery in the room. Bickslow was pretty sure the watch alone would have cost more than his apartment's rent for two years. But then again, it was a high-end jewellery store, and it was strategically placed in a casino. It was there so people could blow all of their winnings on things they didn't need, but hey, what else are they going to do? Save it? Of course not. Half of the people who even visited that town were retirees looking to either win big or lose it all, or irresponsible teenagers. Having an outlet to waste money right in the middle of a casino was a perfect business opportunity.

By the time he'd been around the shop and looked at almost every single exquisite piece of art (only to shake his head at some that were just honestly far too outrageous for anyone to buy), the owner had finally come back out and quickly went around the glass display cabinet doubling as a counter and pulled Bickslow into a hug, patting the taller man's back. "It's good to see you, Bicks!"

Bickslow grinned as he pulled back. "You too, Caspian," he replied.

Caspian pulled his glasses away from his face to fold them up and place them in his inside breast pocket, and then quickly went around the back of the counter to take a seat on the plush red velvet stool. "Ah, anyway," he said, wheeling it closer to fold his arms over the glass, wiping it slightly with his coat sleeve. "How's life been? I haven't seen you since, what?"

"Since last Christmas," Bickslow answered, shrugging and putting his hands back in his pocket. "Got a little busy with guild stuff, sorry."

"Not to bother, not to bother," the other man said with a slight wave of his hand. "I was actually wondering if you'd make time to visit your poor old uncle this year, though."

Bickslow's mouth pulled up into a smirk that matched the other man's. "Yeah, well…" he shrugged, knowing full well his uncle couldn't actually care less that he hadn't visited all year. Granted, he probably should find more reasons to visit the man, considering he really was all the actual family Bickslow had left and probably the only person who knew everything there was to know about him; the man had practically raised him. "Had a few reasons to come into town, thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing." Of course, it wasn't entirely the reason.

"Uh-huh," Caspian mumbled.

"Anyway," Bickslow pushed himself off from where he was leaning back against one of the other displays, and clearing his throat, he pulled the key from his pocket and stepped up to the counter and handed it to his uncle. "How do you feel about turning this into something?" he asked.

When Bickslow had told Lucy that he wanted to show her his favourite place in the world, it hadn't been the entire truth. Sure, the amusement park really was one of his favourite places because he could just relax and have fun when no one else was around, and he didn't have to worry about his walls, and the weather was, although humid and a little disgustingly hot, a whole lot better than Magnolia where it seemed to snow without fail every Christmas. Those were all valid reasons for wanting to take Lucy with him, but none of them were the main reason for the trip in the first place.

He'd wanted to do something for Lucy with Aquarius' key, and he'd wanted to keep it a surprise. He knew she always kept it with her wherever she went, just like she kept all of her keys with her. Her spirits were a part of who she was, and Bickslow understood that on so many levels; to him, they were his souls, and even though he didn't have them following behind him every single day or every single second, he always had them with him, whether they were in their physical bodies or not.

But he'd wanted to be able to make it so Lucy wasn't just carrying a broken key around every day, because he could only see it as being a reminder of what she no longer really had. It wasn't like he thought getting rid of the key was the best idea, because Bickslow knew that that would be the worst possible idea; it would be taking away a piece of who she was, and that just wasn't right. Bickslow just wanted to make it so that she would always have Aquarius by her side, even when she really wasn't there.

And that was where the brilliant idea to take the key to his uncle had come from. The guy was an absolute genius when it came to making jewellery. Everything in his store was handcrafted, and although most of it really was just outrageously odd, they really were worth every Jewel.

Caspian would be able to take that broken key and turn it into something that was just as beautiful as Lucy was. He'd be able to take something that was broken, and make it a piece of art. Bickslow knew that Caspian could do that.

"I was thinking maybe a necklace?" Bickslow said as he leant forward to lean his elbow on the glass, his chin resting in one palm. At least if it was a necklace or something, she'd always have Aquarius by her heart. Of course, Bickslow just had no idea if it could be turned into anything like that without damaging it any more. That's just where his uncle came in and he could work his magic.

Caspian examined the key in his hands after putting his glasses back on, gently turning it to inspect each side and each tiny detail, right down to the near invisible scratches in the metal from being around for centuries. "This looks awfully familiar," Caspian mumbled before he looked to the symbol etched into the white stone in the bow, and he looked up with wide eyes. "How in the world did you get your hands on a Celestial Spirit key?"

"It belongs to a friend of mine," Bickslow said. "Can you do anything with it or not?"

"I suppose," Caspian sighed as he reached under the counter to pull out a piece of fabric, gently laying it down on the counter and placing the key on it. "Now, a necklace… I'm guessing that this key belongs to a _lady_ friend of yours?" he asked, the same mischievous glint in the red eyes.

Bickslow groaned. "Nothing like that."

"But if you're getting her jewellery…"

"Because she…" _Fuck. Where am I going with this?_ "Because I wanted to do something nice, because she had a really hard time, and I'm being an awesome friend, alright? Nothing more, nothing less."

Caspian sniggered as he looked back down to the key, polishing it gently with the cloth. "Definitely sounds like you're being an awesome friend, my boy," he muttered.

"Oh, shut up," Bickslow shot back with a roll of his eyes.

"So, any ideas? Any limits? Anything specific you want me to try and do?" Caspian asked after folding the key up in the cloth and placing it in his pocket.

Bickslow shrugged as he straightened up to fold his arms across his chest. "The key itself is broken, so you don't really have any limits. You're free to do whatever you want, as long as you don't damage it any more than it already is."

"Keep the key intact then?"

"Please," Bickslow said. He trusted his uncle to be able to do something amazing with it, let his imagination and creativity flow and find a way to make something broken not seem… broken. "Anyway," he began to turn on his heels to leave. "I've gotta go—"

"Oh, before you go," Caspian suddenly cut in, and before Bickslow could question anything, the shorter man had quickly disappeared through the curtains and into the back room that Bickslow knew was his workshop and studio, and from where Bickslow stood in the storefront, he could hear rummaging around and the odd clang of something metallic hitting the marble floors.

Caspian came back out a few moments later to Bickslow almost impatiently tapping his foot on the floor, and he held a small silver box out to him. "I wanted to give this to you last year but I forgot, so you can have it now."

Bickslow took the box from his hands and eyed it curiously. "What the hell is this?" he asked, slowly lifting the lid while looking up to his grinning uncle.

"Open it and find out."

So Bickslow opened it, and as soon as he saw what was in the box, he tried to pass it back off to his now laughing uncle. "No fucking way, Cas. I'm not taking that." Nope. He was not taking his mother's engagement ring – the same one his father had obviously given his mother. Nope. He wasn't taking that. No way in hell.

But Caspian wasn't set on that, and he pressed the box back into Bickslow's hands. "Yes, you are," the older man insisted, a soft smile gracing his lips once he stopped laughing. "Someone's gotta have it. Besides, she left it for you in her will. I was only looking after it."

Bickslow frowned as he looked back down the box, suddenly feeling the smallest of pangs in his chest, and he knew what it was. He'd never particularly had the best relationship with his parents, especially as he got older and became a teenager – it was why Caspian had basically raised him – but that didn't mean he didn't miss them. They were his parents after all, and no matter how much he'd hated them for the vast majority of his life, it had hurt to find out that both of them had passed away only within a few years of each other while stuck on Tenrou. It didn't matter that he'd cut almost all ties with them as a teenager, because he still couldn't have helped feeling just a little guilty at the time they'd all come back from Tenrou.

But it was still a thing of the past, and Bickslow had had time to deal with his own issues from it, and as he stared down at the once again open box, he couldn't help but feel that same guilt again. He knew he shouldn't, because there was a very good reason for cutting ties like he had, but still. "I'm never going to use this," he mumbled, staring down at the polished diamond ring.

"You might one day," Caspian shrugged. "It's yours. Keep it, sell it, use it. Up to you, Bicks."

"Can't you just hold on to it, for like, ever?" It would just be so much easier for him if he didn't have to keep the damn ring. He really wasn't going to use it. Ever.

"No, I cannot."

Bickslow sighed. "Fine," he said, only to finally place the box in one of his pockets. He'd probably just keep it in a drawer at home and let it collect dust for all eternity. He knew he couldn't sell it. "Anyway, I gotta go. Think you'll be able to do something with the key before tomorrow night?"

"I'll see what I can do," Caspian nodded before quickly pulling Bickslow into another hug. With a slight smirk as he stepped back, his hands still resting on the taller man's shoulders, he looked up. "Is she special?" He knew Bickslow wouldn't go out of his way to do something thoughtful or that kind unless it was for someone he cared about.

And with another sigh, Bickslow nodded. "Yeah."

* * *

Lucy broke through the water's surface with a lazy smile and a quiet laugh as she pushed her hair back and out of her face, smoothing it back to the nape of her neck. The feel of the almost warm water against her body and the only marginally cooler air was enough to make her sigh in content as she finally opened her eyes and looked up to the near cloudless sky, the moon and stars illuminating the silver sands of the beach and the water she was surrounded by.

It didn't matter that it was the middle of the night and she was alone on the beach, because in that moment, everything felt so peaceful. She felt carefree, almost weightless, and honestly, happier than she had in a long time.

And it was because of the small things that made her so happy; the things like her taking that much needed vacation to get out of Magnolia right before Christmas, or to spending some more time alone with Bickslow. Where no one was on their backs about them being in an apparent relationship, and then not to mention the fact that she'd left her swimming suit and rest of her clothes on the beach just behind her.

It was the small things like skinny-dipping in the middle of the night by herself that were making her happy. She was taking a risk – being almost reckless, by her standards – and she was enjoying it. She was enjoying her time off from the guild and all of the pressures of everything.

But, oh, it was just so hot that night, and even with the glass doors to her hotel balcony having been wide open in an attempt to let in the almost non-existent breeze into the room, she hadn't been able to fall asleep. Lucy had tossed and turned for so long, trying to make herself comfortable on the sheets, only to have them stick to her ever so slightly in the muggy night. She just couldn't fall asleep like that.

So in the dead of the night, she'd made her way out onto her balcony, just for a tiny bit of fresh air, and when she looked down to the sprawling and peaceful beach below her, being able to just make out the gentle crashing of the waves against the shoreline, she just had the urge to go for a swim in the middle of the night.

It would cool her off for sure, and maybe just a bit of splashing about by herself would tire her out enough to drift off to sleep. Except when she finally did make it down to the silent beach, most of the town's residents (tourists and citizens) off in their respective beds or in the casino, Lucy felt a rush of adrenaline course through her. She was alone on that beach, and the thrill and excitement of the possibility of being caught by a stranger was enough to make the blonde quickly shed her clothes and dash off into the waters of Akane Beach.

It was the small things like doing something she'd never done before – living life almost to the fullest – that made her happier than she'd been in a long time. She was enjoying herself, and she was enjoying every single moment of it.

But maybe she'd been enjoying the moment too much, relishing the way the water felt against her bare body and the silence all around her, because she didn't notice that she wasn't alone on the beach behind her any longer. Not until someone called out her name from where they stood on the soft sands, and at the voice, she'd squeaked and turned, all while simultaneously lowering herself into the water to keep her chest submerged.

"Cosplayer?" Bickslow called out, stopping in his tracks when he looked out to the blonde in the water facing away from him. He'd almost been about to ignore the person swimming alone and keep walking along the beach, but then they'd come back up to the surface with a quiet laugh, and Bickslow knew that laugh anywhere.

"Bicks?" she called back, slowly wading back out to the deeper water so she wasn't awkwardly having to kneel to keep herself covered. "What are you doing out here so late?"

He shrugged. "Wasn't really tired," he replied, only looking down to the sand for a moment before he roughly dropped down to sit, his forearms crossed over his knees as he brought them up. "And it was way too hot to stay in my room. What's your excuse?"

" _Couldn't_ sleep," Lucy said, smiling softly as a light blush crept up onto her cheeks. It was only now just dawning on her that all there was separating Bickslow from seeing her completely was a few feet of water and sand, and the dark sky reflecting in surface of the water. "Too hot, so I thought I'd try cooling down before I tried it again."

"Ever heard of a cold shower?"

"But the beach is right here."

"Fair point," Bickslow shrugged, switching to lean back on his hands instead before he turned his head to look down the beach to see if there was anyone else out on a late night stroll or swim. But then his eyes caught something white on the sand not too far away from him, and he leant to the side to reach for it, only to lift up a white bikini top. "…And you're skinny-dipping. Wow," he mumbled, suddenly dropping the article of clothing back to the small pile it had come from.

Lucy giggled as Bickslow quickly got up and wiped the sand from his shorts. "You should join me," she said, stopping him in his tracks again right before he could take a single step to escape the awkward situation he'd found himself in. She knew she was playing in dangerous waters, but she didn't care. She wasn't going to let anything ruin her mood.

He turned to look over his shoulder with his brows knitted together in a vast array of emotions – mostly shock and disbelief. "You're fucking kidding me, right?" _Did she really just fucking say that?_

"Come on, the water's nice," she said sweetly, almost trying to coax him into the water like the siren that Bickslow was certain she was in that moment.

It felt like he had an angel and devil on each shoulder in that moment – one telling him to just fucking run, and run far away and fast, the other telling him to just go for it and give in to her. The problem was one was a lot louder than the other, and it wasn't the angel.

"I won't look if you don't," she said with that sly smirk that showed that she already knew what Bickslow was going to do. Even from where she stood, she could see Bickslow's mind tick over as he contemplated what to do.

As she continued to stare at him through those playful chocolate eyes, Bickslow could feel them pulling him in. Her voice and her eyes and her smirk were what were drawing him to the water, and much to the devil on his shoulder's satisfaction, Lucy had won. She'd won because Bickslow was powerless against her; she had him wrapped around her finger and she didn't even know it, and it had been driving him insane for weeks.

"Turn around," he muttered as he reached for the back of his shirt and quickly pulled it over his shoulders and head, dropping it to the ground beside her own astray clothes. Another giggle left her lips as she turned, her fingers lightly brushing the surface of the water, and with a shake of his head, Bickslow was undoing the button of his shorts and pulling the rest of his clothes down his legs.

There he was, standing naked on the beach in the middle of the fucking night, and it was all because of Lucy.

 _That woman is going to be the death of me._

Far too quickly and almost gracefully though, he made his way into the water, making sure to keep enough distance between himself and Lucy. "You're actually insane," he said when he came to a stop only a few feet away from Lucy, the water only going up to his waist.

"No I'm not," Lucy turned as a gentle wave rolled past her, having her teetering forward for just a moment. "I'm just having…" Her lips pulled up into another slight smirk before she slowly made her move past Bickslow, his eyes following her as she went, and as she let her fingertips brush against his arm ever so slightly, she stopped as she came up behind him. "Fun," she said innocently, and quickly, she took a single step under the water and before he could glance over his shoulder one more time, she lifted one leg to kick him forward, her foot hitting the back of his leg and sending him stumbling forward into the water. She couldn't have Bickslow only half soaking wet. That was just wasn't fair.

He shot back up with a quick flick of his head that had water droplets from his hair going in all directions, and Lucy's laugh had him grinning ear-to-ear as he pushed it back and out of his face as he turned around to face her. "So that's how you wanna do it, huh?"

"Do what?" she asked innocently. Had she just initiated a water fight? Quite possibly. Was she going to let Bickslow have all the fun with it? No way in hell.

"This," he chuckled, and quickly, he cupped his hand and swiped it across the surface of the water, splashing the blonde as she tried to shield herself with her hands.

And they did that for a few minutes, just splashing each other with water and attempting to dodge the other's attacks, all while making sure to keep their distance for the most part, and Lucy staying in the slightly deeper water. Except, they hadn't been doing a very good job of it, having found themselves quickly lost in the moment and getting each other as soaked as possible, it seemed, and as a larger wave rolled by from the wind that had picked up and hit Lucy unexpectedly, having gotten used to keeping her balance with the smaller ones, she stumbled forward, only to steady herself against Bickslow.

His mind completely shut down then, and he could barely register how close they were, her body only a few inches from his own, with nothing there to separate them. He was frozen, his hands apparently having gone out to her waist to steady her on instinct, and her hands flat on his chest as she found herself frozen too.

Neither could move, and as their brains fought to regain control, they found their hearts winning over, because ultimately, neither _wanted_ to move. There were no words, no moving, and no knowing what was going through the other person's mind.

Lucy couldn't hear anything over the sound of her heart beating in her ears, and even if it wasn't so deafening, she didn't think she'd be able to hear anything around her at all – the waves crashing against the shore, the light rustle of the palm trees in the light breeze – because everything seemed to crumble away again. In that moment, it was just her and Bickslow, and as she finally raised her head to meet his gaze from where she realised she'd been staring at her hands on his chest, she could feel herself slipping even further away from the world, and she enjoyed it.

Nothing else existed outside herself and Bickslow, seemingly frozen in time, and Lucy quickly realised that she really was in dangerous waters. Things could so quickly spiral out of control, and it could be in one of two ways.

But even then as she looked up into the garnet eyes that really did feel like were staring into the very depths of her soul, and were able to see every single thing she was hiding, Lucy couldn't tell what Bickslow was hiding. There was something – there was always something with Bickslow – but as close as she was, she just couldn't see it. She couldn't get past whatever it was that was keeping her out, and in that moment, it was driving her more insane than usual.

In an instant, everything could go so horribly wrong, or go so horribly right, and Lucy really hoped it was the latter. All she wanted to do was tell him – no, _show_ him – how she felt, and she couldn't think of a better moment. The only problem was that she had no idea if things would play out how she wanted them to.

She was so certain Bickslow didn't feel anything for her, but as she stood there, she was beginning to doubt herself, and she didn't know why. She had to know, though. She needed to know either way, and to do that, she had to take a risk. She had to take a chance, and after all, wasn't life all about taking risks? It was the thrill of it all that made Lucy so inclined to take that risk, and throwing the last of her thoughts away, she lifted her hands to take his face between them, and raised herself up on her toes to gently press her lips to his.

And in an instant, everything fell away for Bickslow. He truly had no idea what was going on, but he just couldn't think about it. He didn't want to think about it.

As soon as she pulled away, desperately searching for some sign from Bickslow, he quickly leant back down and pulled her against him, his hands gripping on to her hips and her arms lacing around her neck, and he kissed her back like he'd wanted to for so long.

The taste of salt on her lips and her feel of her body against his – it was enough to just make everything else almost irrelevant, and in that moment, Bickslow really couldn't have cared less. Nothing else mattered, because right then, he had the woman he loved with him, and everything was almost perfect.

Maybe just for one night he could forget about everything though. Just one night where she was his and he was hers, and just once, he could give in to his desires.

He quickly lowered his hands to the backs of her thighs, only ghosting over the sides of her hips and her ass as he lifted her up, and as his near aching member brushed against her heated core beneath the surface of the water, a breathy moan escaped her lips and she arched her back into him slightly.

"Not here. Not like this," he murmured, his mouth brushing up the column of her neck. Everything had spiralled out of control so quickly, but even so, Bickslow had enough of some sort of self-control to make sure things didn't progress any further there. No, if they were going to do what they both so obviously wanted, then it wasn't going to be there, not like that.

Lucy could only nod slightly before her lips found Bickslow's again, and she could only vaguely feel him walking them back towards the beach.

But as they finally made it out of the water and haphazardly and hurriedly pulled on their clothes, Bickslow was finally able to throw away the rest of his worries and concerns and everything else that had kept him awake that night in the first place. Just for one night, he could do all of that. He knew he would come to regret it in the morning, because even then, Bickslow did know that he was going to be making a mistake, but it didn't matter. He could deal with all of that come morning, because right then, for just one night, he could have everything he wanted.

Just one night.

* * *

 **Yeah, so that happened...**

 **Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter. More of the key in the next chapter, and there'll be a bit of a longer A/N to read tomorrow. I did consider adding it to the introduction, but it will work better in the chapter itself as a reminder.**

 **Until then.**

 **\- April**


	8. (II) Blind

_**CHAPTER 6: HIDDEN**_  
 _ **BLIND**_

* * *

The sound of the heavy sheets of rain hitting the balcony, the icy wind coming through the open door and biting through the thin sheet he was barely covered in was what drew Bickslow from his sleep.

He rubbed at his eyes with one hand before he turned his head to the side to look towards the balcony on the side of the room; the curtains blowing in the wind and the dark storm clouds over the ocean, and the occasional flash of lightning across the skies. Morning had come, and as he looked towards the blonde just beside him, Bickslow knew it had all been a mistake.

One of the worst things about it all was that Bickslow couldn't even blame it on alcohol; he'd been completely (and almost painfully, come morning) sober, and he could remember every single little detail about the night. He didn't want to, though, because like he always did, he'd made things so much worse for himself.

It was never supposed to have happened; he was never supposed to have been with her like that; he was never supposed to have been her first. As gratifying as it should have been, to know that she trusted him enough in that moment to be that for her, it really wasn't. He hadn't wanted to be the one to take something like that from her, but he was so powerless to her every move that there was nothing he could do. His own desire for her had completely won out and taken over, and just for one night, he hadn't cared about anything but Lucy and getting what he'd wanted – and she'd wanted – for so long.

Oh, but every single moment, every second… They played back in his mind as he just listened to the rain outside her room. The feel of her silky flesh beneath his hands, the lingering taste of salt all over her body from the water, her heated touches; all of it Bickslow could remember, in agonizingly perfect detail.

And that's what it was: perfect. It had just been one agonizingly perfect night.

But no matter how perfect it had been, Bickslow still regretted it, because now so much more than ever, he was confused about Lucy, and more importantly, how Lucy felt. Was there a chance he'd missed something as important as Lucy developing feelings for him? Surely not. It just couldn't be. It was impossible. It just had to have been a spur of the moment event; nothing more, nothing less. Just a bit of fun.

That's what it had to be, because if it was anything else, Bickslow was going to have no idea what to do with himself, and everything would just get so much worse. It was nothing more than a bit of fun. It was just one night. He told himself this over and over again, hoping that if he did it enough the lie would become truth.

With a final glance to the sleeping blonde beside him, facing away from him, he sighed and then rolled himself to the side of the bed, only to sit up and run his hands through his messy hair. It almost felt strange leaving like that – before she woke up – even though he'd done it a million times. It was always just so much easier leaving before they woke up, because it saved an awkward conversation, and that was one conversation he really did not want to be having with Lucy.

But as he stood from the bed, the slight movement was enough to gently tousle Lucy and her eyes fluttered open slowly. She became acutely aware of the dull pain between her legs as she turned slightly. Even though she'd never really thought much about it even being possible to ache like that, she didn't mind or care. It was bearable, and in her opinion, totally worth it.

As she got her bearings and felt the chill through the thin sheet, she pulled it up slightly and held her arm over her chest, holding the sheet against herself, and rolled over onto her other side. A lazy smile flitted across her lips as she looked towards Bickslow just by the foot of the bed, his back to her as he pulled on his clothes from the previous day.

To Lucy, the night had been everything, and more. It had been everything she'd wanted, and that night, all she'd wanted was Bickslow, and she got just that. Everything about it had been just so perfect; the polished fingertips gently caressing her every curve, his lips on places she hadn't expected to make her want to writhe in absolutely ecstasy, oh, and the way he moved with her to that peak that made her not regret a single thing to get them to that point.

Maybe taking that risk to make her move was all that had been stopping anything from happening sooner, because as she laid there with a soft smile on her lips, she was almost entirely convinced that she hadn't been the only one harbouring romantic feelings of some type for the other. Maybe she'd just been wrong the entire time.

"Leaving?" she said softly.

Bickslow turned around at her quiet voice and reached for his shirt from where it was on the ground. "Um, yeah…" he mumbled, doing his best to avoid looking at her. _Damn it, why does she have to look like that? And that fucking smile. Fuck._ He knew he couldn't just leave without saying anything; he had to say something, but he was just so worried about fucking it all up. "Look… last night…"

Lucy sat up slightly and kept the sheet pinned against her. The chill down her exposed back was almost counteracted by the heat she felt on her cheeks, and her self-consciousness about the situation rose tremendously. "…Not good?" she asked, desperately trying to cling on to her last shred of dignity.

"Oh, no, trust me, it was great," Bickslow quickly said. _Almost too great._ "I just…" He pulled the shirt on over his head and then ran his hand through the tousled hair as he tried to think of what to say. He didn't want to be having that conversation at all and he felt his heart crack just a little with the thought of it. "I can't… we can't… this can't happen again."

"Oh." She could feel her heart sink in an instant, though she did her best to keep it from showing. "Why…?" she asked softly, staring down at the sheets as she moved to sit up on her knees, the sheet still around her. Could she even ask that?

"Because I…" Bickslow realised he didn't know if he could answer that. _Because I'm still trying to fall out of love with you for whatever reason, and the closer I get, the harder it is to do that._ "Just because," he said, pointedly looking to the ground. He still didn't even believe anything could ever work.

Nothing could ever come from just one night of fun. It couldn't.

"Why do you always do that?" Lucy asked quietly, almost as a whisper.

"Do what?"

She took a breath as she looked up from the sheets, only to meet Bickslow's confused gaze – probably the first time he'd actually looked her in the eyes all morning, she realised. "Why do you always avoid everything?" Because that's what he was doing, wasn't he? He was avoiding answering the question; he was hiding behind something like he usually did and was keeping the truth from her.

He was beginning to panic then. He wasn't going to do that then. "I'm not—"

"No, Bickslow," she cut him off as she raised her voice slightly. Lucy was done. She thought she could put up with it for a little while longer – _everyone has their secrets_ – but not then, not with what had happened. Didn't she deserve to know the truth about some things, especially when she was absolutely certain they were about her?

"You do, and don't say that you don't. You do it so often, too. You constantly make a point of avoiding things and it's almost like you're hiding from me and that hurts, because I don't know what I did to deserve that from you."

Bickslow could only stand there in silence, too scared and too shocked to move. Had she always felt like that? Had she always known what he was doing? Bickslow just didn't know, because all he did know in that moment was that everything had quickly spiralled out of control once again and he'd undoubtedly ruined everything. He'd quite possibly ruined the one good thing in his life, and he didn't know what to do about it.

"I don't even want to say that it feels like you're lying to me all the time, but that's what it feels like right now," she pleaded, her eyes going back down to the sheets. "I thought… you know, I thought we were… friends…" It almost stung to even say the word, and she did her very best to stop the tears in her eyes from falling. Everything was just falling apart so quickly and she hated it. "And I thought that you'd trust me enough to—"

"I do trust you," Bickslow interrupted. He did, didn't he? At least he thought he did.

"No, I don't think you do," Lucy insisted. "Because if you trusted me, I wouldn't be sitting here wondering just what it was I did to make you decide that it was better to just keep everything hidden away. I trusted you right from the very beginning with everything, and you know that I'm thankful for… for everything you did, really, but it didn't matter how much I opened up to you and tried to show you that you could trust me, because nothing worked. I just… I feel like I still know nothing about you, when you know so much about me, and it's almost unfair."

"You know more about me than you think."

Lucy sighed as she threw her head back to stare up at the ceiling for just a moment. She was quickly growing frustrated with everything even more than she already was, the desire to scream mounting with her anger. "But it doesn't even matter anymore, does it? Because you can't even tell me what it was I did to make things this way." And as she looked back down to her sheets, she didn't just mean them not sleeping together again; she meant with everything. What exactly had she done to make Bickslow want to hide things from her? She just knew it was her fault somehow. Lucy felt her heart start to crack as the tears silently streaked down her cheeks.

"You didn't do anything," he said quietly, and when he saw her open her mouth to try and argue it he quickly cut her off. "No, Lucy, listen," Bickslow was quickly losing his patience. He had to find a way to make things just a little bit better than they were, because if he had to listen to Lucy blame herself for his own stupidity, then he didn't know what he'd do. "I trust you, more than you know, but this; it has nothing to do with that."

"I don't see—"

"This is about me making a mistake," and as soon as the words had left his mouth, he wished he hadn't. It was just another regret, and as she looked back up to him, Bickslow realised just how much he had hurt her; and that was the last thing he'd wanted to do. "I don't do this. I don't do the entire… dating, relationship thing. I never have. That's just not me."

Even if there had been a slight possibility of Lucy actually having feelings for him, Bickslow was absolutely certain that they were all gone. He was certain that anything she may have felt for him died in that moment. And you'd think that he'd be used to having that conversation, but with Lucy, it was so much different. It was so much harder.

Even when Bickslow could see that all she wanted was the truth about him, he couldn't bring himself to say any of it. He couldn't tell her that everything – from the hiding and the avoiding and the lying that was really just bending of the truth, like he did with everyone – was because he was too scared to let her in. It wasn't from a lack of trust, but a fear of letting Lucy get closer, only to have her leave. It was all because Bickslow hadn't wanted to lose her as a friend. He felt his chest tighten and his heart throb as the pain of losing Lucy in his life lanced through him.

But none of that mattered now, because he'd just lost her. He'd lost her over a mistake, but it was a mistake she would never understand. She would never understand because Lucy would never know just how badly he had screwed up, or what it would ultimately cost him in the end.

"Sex with people you're friends with just ruins things, and, uh… as great as it was, really, it was a bad idea, and I shouldn't have—"

Lucy stood up slowly and pulled the sheets from the bed, wrapping the excess around her as she looked down to the ground. "It's okay, I get it," she whispered, forcing herself to smile softly as she looked up, locking the fragments of her heart away.

Even though Bickslow was sure Lucy didn't even understand the half of it, Lucy was certain she did. What was there to not understand? She'd become the one thing she hadn't wanted to be to Bickslow; she'd become a mistake. A meaningless one-night stand and that fact hurt more than she would ever admit.

For a moment, she really had thought that she'd been wrong about how Bickslow felt, but she realised she'd been right all along. She'd just been a friend to Bickslow – nothing more and nothing less – and she should have been able to see that it could never be anything more. Lucy just felt incredibly stupid, having taken that chance and that risk, only to have her heart broken like she'd always expected. She'd always known that it was going to happen, because deep down, she knew she should have just been happy with Bickslow in her life as he was.

But that moment on the beach… she'd let the thrill of it all get to her and cloud her judgement, and even though Lucy didn't quite regret doing what she did, she did see it as a mistake. It was a mistake because she'd quite possibly lost one of her closest friends over it, and had her heart crushed in the process.

"Can you, um… can you please leave?" she whispered again, only slowly moving around the bed as the sheet dragged along the ground. She couldn't do it anymore. Not with Bickslow, not then, and maybe not ever. She couldn't even look at him properly.

And as she walked past him, Bickslow felt his own heart breaking even more, and all he could do was nod and turn on his heels and head for the door. He'd fucked it all up, and he knew that there was no coming back. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, just before he heard the bathroom door close, the hollow sound breaking what was left of both their tattered hearts. With a final sigh and run of his fingers through the tangled hair, he left the hotel room and made his way out into the hall.

Everything had just fallen apart so quickly, and in a way he'd never quite expected it to.

* * *

Bickslow spent hours in his bed, staring up at the ceiling above him, counting each miniscule crack in the plaster and just watching as the fan slowly spun around. It just kept spinning and spinning, much like his life that just kept going around in a vicious circle.

He'd lost the one person who meant the most to him – again.

It always happened, but with Lucy, it was the one thing he'd never wanted to let happen. But he'd done exactly that, and he knew it was entirely his fault. Bickslow brought his arm up to drape over his eyes as he lay in his bed internally berating himself over his stupidity.

He'd thought that he would be used to people leaving him, because that's what everyone did at some point. It was why Bickslow was the way he was. So, to an extent, Bickslow really was used to people leaving. It was something that always happened eventually and he'd accepted that completely. But with Lucy, it just hurt so much more, and it hurt knowing that he could have prevented it. Or at least, it wouldn't have been so bad. Because ultimately, things were so just royally screwed up and it was all Bickslow's fault.

All he wanted to do was find a way to make things just a little bit better. He needed to make her understand what it was all about, and to do that, he had to let Lucy see who he really was. He had to take down his walls and let her in, even if it would just be for a moment so she could understand just why he said what he said and did what he did.

It didn't matter that he'd always been so scared of doing exactly that, because the one thing he had been most terrified about happening had already happened. He'd lost someone important in his life, but it hadn't been because he'd let him get too close. With Lucy, it had almost been the opposite. She'd left because he'd been doing his best to keep her out and stop her from seeing who he really was.

In essence, it hadn't mattered what he'd done, because even though Bickslow had thought that keeping her out as much as he could would be the right thing and keep her from finding a reason to leave, he'd been so wrong. If he'd let her in, she'd have left; he kept her out, and she still left. Either way, she'd left, and Bickslow didn't think he could hate himself any more in that moment, because he'd ultimately let it happen. He had pushed her away in his warped attempt at protecting himself for the very pain he caused.

Bickslow wanted to fix things, even though he knew it was one thing that could never be truly repaired. He'd screwed it up too much to ever do that. But, he could still try, and it was exactly why he'd gone back to her room only a few hours after leaving it. He'd needed to apologise for everything and make her see that it wasn't at all what she thought, because he'd had a pretty good idea of what she thought it was all about. He needed to prove that he hadn't used her, because ultimately, that's what he could see Lucy as thinking it was about.

But when he'd gone back to apologise to the one person who had figured it all out on her own without knowing the details, she'd been gone. She'd left. Checked out and gone back to Magnolia, most likely, and honestly, Bickslow couldn't blame her. If the entire situation had been reversed, he probably would have done the same thing. The guilt of what he had done burned a hole in his heart.

In a way, though, Lucy being gone worked out. It gave Bickslow time to think about what it was he'd even say when he, too, went back to Magnolia (just because he'd been ready to tear down his walls, it didn't mean he'd had the words to explain any of it), and it gave Lucy space. He knew she needed her space, and he'd give her that. He'd give her all the space in the world after he'd explained everything to her, because after that, it would be back to how things were; Lucy would spend her time with her team rather than in his apartment, and he'd go back to trying to fall out of love with her, even though he was almost certain it was never going to happen.

They'd just go back to being not even friends. His heart thudded painfully at the thought of having to go back to pretending he didn't love her that there was nothing between them. And as much as it hurt Bickslow to accept that he'd lost Lucy from his life because he'd quite literally fucked it all up, he was strangely okay with everything going back to before anything had happened. He would suffer but he would do so in silence if it meant that Lucy would be okay.

To think, that he wouldn't be in that situation at all if he hadn't ended up at Lucy's door in the near middle of the night on an almost impulse, and if Lucy hadn't decided to show up to his apartment at three o'clock in the morning to cry on his couch. If he hadn't taken that risk to tell her that he could see through all of her walls and that he'd wanted to help her, then she wouldn't have taken her own chance to trust him and open herself up to him. If none of that had happened, then they would never have become closer at all.

But Bickslow wouldn't change any of that for the world, not ever. It didn't matter that he still didn't know just why Lucy had wanted to spend so much time with him, or how he never did find out how just what it was that had helped Lucy cheer up so quickly, because the point was that Lucy had been happy, and that was all he'd ever wanted to see again.

He'd seen her smile, and heard her laugh, and he'd felt the warmth from her soul once again and it had made Bickslow happy, because it was all he'd ever wanted. Of course, he still hated looking at a person's soul unless it was absolutely necessary, but with Lucy, it was all curiosity. It was his curiosity that had led him to see just how hurt she truly had been in the first place, and it was that same curiosity that made him want to see just how she was faring, and that had only been a month earlier.

Seeing her soul so dull and completely shattered had crushed him, truly, but seeing it glow nearly as brightly as it once had was strangely satisfying to see. He liked to think that he had helped get her to that point, that without that chance, she wouldn't be as happy as she had for the last nearly two months.

But he really had gone and fucked it all up. He'd taken away that happiness – he knew he had, after seeing her face. Even though he still didn't understand just why it had hurt her that much, only having an idea, he knew he'd hurt her. And it had ultimately been because he'd been a hypocrite the entire time. The guilt of his actions hit him hard and Bickslow had to take a deep breath to get control on his frantic emotions.

She had opened herself up to him and trusted him with something she'd been keeping to herself. She'd trusted him of all people to help her through it, and for a moment, he'd been the person that she'd needed in her life. He'd been the person to hold her when she'd cried, calm her down when she'd panicked and worried about no one supposedly caring again. He had told her that things would get better, and everything else she'd needed him to do. Bickslow had been her strength because she had so many lows in those first couple of weeks, and he had been there for every single one of them.

She had listened to him when he'd told her that she needed to let people in to help her, while he'd been doing the exact opposite himself. She'd trusted him to be her friend, and she'd told him so many things about her life and who she was, while Bickslow had been sitting there and lying about the exact same things. It was unfair, wasn't it? It was unfair that he'd continued to hide behind his walls, while Lucy had burned all of hers to the ground.

Everything she'd said before he'd left her room had been right. She didn't deserve that from Bickslow, but at the time, he'd been so set on keeping his own walls up and keeping her out that he overlooked Lucy, as shocking as it was. For a brief moment, he'd been unable to see what he'd needed to do to fix things, because he'd reverted to his old habits. He'd treated Lucy like any other woman he slept with, and she did not deserve that. From anyone. The thought of anyone using Lucy had him clenching his fists at his sides, his teeth gnashing together. Bickslow still didn't know just why it had hurt so much, given that he was still certain that their night had been just a heat of the moment event, and that was for both of them.

But… it didn't really matter in hindsight, because the point was that he'd screwed it all up. Lucy most likely hated him, and Bickslow really thought he deserved it. He deserved to have lost her, but that still wasn't going to stop him from explaining everything. For her, he'd take down his walls. Just once, to let her see that it really wasn't anything she'd done.

He'd tell her everything – from how he knew something was wrong in the first place, to who he was behind the visor, including the fact that he'd been in love with her for far too long.

No more walls and no more hiding. She deserved better than that, and Bickslow knew it. A tremor of panic ran through him as he thought of lowering those defences but the memory of the look on Lucy's face solidified his resolve. For her, and only her, he would be completely vulnerable. Just this once he would drop all his walls and let someone in.

* * *

Lucy walked into the guild with a frown on her face. It was something she hadn't done in an incredibly long time. Even when she'd been at her absolute worst and no one had known, she'd been smiling, because she'd had to.

This time, though, she just didn't care. She was only there because she needed someone to make her smile; because the one person who had been able to cheer her up without fail had been the one to make her miserable that day. Thinking of him and how she had lost his friendship made her chest ache.

The worst part about it all to Lucy was that she couldn't really hate Bickslow. She couldn't hate him for breaking her heart, because that's really what he'd done; she'd almost offered her heart out on a silver platter only to get it shattered. Lucy really just hated herself more than anything. She'd allowed her heart to get broken, and she'd let herself be idiotic enough to fall in love with someone she truly shouldn't have.

How could she hate anyone but herself when it was her own fault things had turned out that way? She'd known how it was going to end up, but her stupid hopefulness and optimism had gotten the better of her and she had let herself believe for just a moment that she had a chance of being something more than a friend to Bickslow. But no, she'd been so wrong and stupid, and she was paying the price for it.

It was why she'd ended up leaving so soon and was back in Magnolia by sunset – one that was nowhere near as beautiful as the one she'd seen from the ferris wheel. She was hurting and she couldn't bear to be around Bickslow, because undoubtedly, he'd be able to see through the walls that she'd put up once again in order to keep him from seeing just how much pain she was in then.

She was heartbroken and she didn't want Bickslow to know. She didn't want Bickslow to know that she hated herself more than she did him, because still, she felt like she had and incapacity to hate him, or even dislike him. She'd had to smile and pretend it was all okay, like she had all those months earlier. She'd had to close herself off from the one person she cared about most, and she'd had to force herself to believe that it was entirely her fault. She just couldn't let Bickslow see any of that.

And she knew that she was going to have to face him eventually, because he'd probably come asking just why she'd got up and left so suddenly, especially when she'd tried her best to make a point of seeming to be fine with the morning's events. When, in essence, it had only been an attempt to remind herself that she was to blame for everything she felt, and she didn't want Bickslow to feel guilty.

But for now, she couldn't be around him. It would hurt too much. She just needed something to distract her, and the guild could definitely do that. Their late night antics could always put a smile on her face.

Hearing the heavy doors close behind her, she stopped just by the request board where Nab was unsurprisingly standing, and she looked over the crowded room. But she couldn't spy that familiar pink hair, nor could she see her favourite stripper. The giggling blue Exceed was noticeably absent, and so was the ever terrifying Erza. Not a single slice of cake was squashed and there were no people scrambling from having a few swords pointed at their throats.

With a sigh, she put her missing friends aside and made her way into the busy room. She walked past Levy and Gajeel, only waving to the bluenette as she looked up from her book and then past where Juvia was sitting with Lisanna, smiling to each of them. She ducked under a broom that went flying over her head, and stepped over a broken chair as she made her way over to the bar; given it was her go-to place to sit when her team was out.

As she made her way over there, though, she didn't see the slightly intrigued looks that three mages gave her as she walked past them. When Lucy finally got over to the bar and seated herself next to Cana and in front of Mira, Evergreen quickly got up from where she sat with Freed and Laxus after they all shared a look of concern, and then made her way across the guild to join Lucy at the bar.

"Oh, hi, Ever," Lucy mumbled, only glancing up when she saw a flash of bright green in her peripheral vision.

"What the hell are you doing back here?" Evergreen asked, the irritation in her voice causing Lucy to look up again and draw back slightly. Softening her gaze, she added, "I just thought you two said you'd be back tomorrow afternoon. Where's Bicks?" Lucy flinched only slightly at the sound of his name, locking her emotions away, not wanting his team to see her pain.

Lucy shrugged and turned her attention back to the smoothie Mira placed in front of her, and took a sip from the red straw before the tall glass back down on the counter. "I assume he's still at the hotel."

"Okay… but why are you here, and why is he still there?" Mira asked.

"Because…" Lucy paused just long enough to consider what she would say. "Because I didn't want to stay there." It was the truth, and Lucy wasn't going to be one to lie to people she called her friends any more. She'd done it in the past and she knew how it felt to know that someone was lying to her, because it was what Bickslow had been doing the entire time. But she still couldn't be mad at him for it. She'd been stupid enough to put up with it all, really.

Evergreen frowned at the blonde. "Do I need to get Laxus to shock the hell out of him when he gets back?" She knew that Bickslow would probably deserve it, because he always did, but she sensed that he'd need it just that little bit more.

Bickslow and Lucy had been practically inseparable over the last weeks. No one really seemed to care too much after Lucy had explained how they'd become friends in the first place, because in all honesty, there was something about the two of them that just seemed to work, and no one could really quite figure out just what it was. It was why everyone had assumed that they were secretly together and not _'just friends'_ as they seemed so set on calling themselves.

Of course, after they'd each denied having any sort of feelings for each other, one of them had finally found the courage to admit it to herself and Mirajane. Hell, Lucy had probably admitted it to herself at the same time she'd told Ever and Mira.

But the problem was still Bickslow. Evergreen (and Freed and Laxus, for that matter) knew better than anyone that the Seith mage was incredibly skilled when it came to hiding from people – or himself, if you thought about it – and that was because they all were. Just because they all had their trust issues (a little with each other) and they all understood that they were all dealing with their own personal battles on a daily basis, they all still cared about each other. They were a family, and they always had been.

No one ever said a family had to get along for every single second of every single day.

It was because they were a family that they could all accept that they each had their walls, and there were always things that they never wanted to talk about. They all had their reasons to keep most people out, but with Bickslow, the rest of the Raijinshuu could see that he took that to a new level. Originally, they'd thought it had just been about Bickslow having a few more secrets than most, and that was okay. They'd left him to his secrecy, and they'd ignored the few times he'd slipped up over the years and shown glimpses of what he kept hidden, because they knew he would just ignore every conversation about it anyway.

But once Lucy had come into his life, he slipped up more and more. It was because the rest of the Raijinshuu knew he had his walls – because they all did – that they could see them coming down when he was around Lucy. He still did a damn fine job of keeping exactly how he was feeling hidden, because it was something he'd always been able to do, but they could see that he was letting Lucy in. He'd let her in more than he had anyone else in years.

It was why they all wondered just how Bickslow actually felt about her, and they suspected that he really might have feelings for the blonde. They just really couldn't tell, and even if he was, there would have been no way in hell he'd ever admit it. The man liked to keep his secrets.

But Evergreen could see the sorrow in Lucy's eyes, and she wasn't even trying to hide it. It only made the Fairy mage wonder if her misery then was because of Bickslow.

"No," Lucy sighed as she leant forward to rest her elbow on the bar. "No one needs to be shocked." She didn't want that for Bickslow, as much as it would probably be a sight to see.

"Lucy," Mira said softly. "You seem down. What happened?"

"Seriously, if Bicks needs his ass ki—"

"Ever," Lucy turned her head to narrow her eyes at the Fairy mage, silencing her immediately. "Bickslow didn't do anything wrong," she warned. "He didn't do anything at all, in fact. I just… I was being stupid, and it's no one else's fault but mine, okay?"

Mira and Evergreen looked at the blonde in confusion as they both tried to figure out just what it was that had happened. What on Earthland could Lucy have done that was stupid enough to make her not want to stay around Bickslow for another day?

It was only when Lucy looked back down to take another sip from her smoothie and when Cana had looked between the other two women down that end of the bar did anything happen. In a split second, all three had moved from where they stood or sat. Cana and Evergreen had looped their arms through Lucy's and pulled her from her chair as she protested, and Mira had turned to Kinana as she placed a glass down on the bar.

"Watch the bar, will you?" Mira asked hurriedly as she rushed past the purple-haired woman, only to receive a nod and a smile.

Lucy's protests and cries, begging to be put down by the two women on either side of her went ignored as she found herself being taken up the stairs and into one of the empty offices. There was just no way her friends could go without knowing just what it was that had made Lucy miserable that day, and already, Evergreen was thinking of ways to punish one of her best friends. There was just no way that Bickslow hadn't played a part in Lucy being the way she was then.

* * *

Bickslow worriedly twisted the small charm between his fingers as the golden chain fell down over his hands, swaying ever so slightly as he took each step. He looked down then and lifted it up, bringing the necklace up and letting it hang in front of his visor-less face. His uncle had seriously done a wonder on it. He'd reformed the broken part of the key, almost making the join seamless and like it hadn't been broken in the first place, and with the shrinking spell he'd used on it, it was near impossible to tell that it had fixed at all. Of course, it wasn't entirely fixed, because the key had still lost all of its magic. It had just been repurposed and turned into a necklace charm that happened to glow a deep sapphire when submerged in water.

But of course, they were both spells that could be reversed in the event that Lucy didn't like it, and Bickslow was sure that Lucy would hate it now. Still, though, he had to give it back to her, including the improvements and instructions on how to reverse the spells and bring it back to its broken, non-glowing, and full-size state.

When he saw the guild just at the top of the hill, the sun high above it and slightly hidden behind the wispy clouds, Bickslow hastily and carefully put the necklace back in a pocket of his cloak, and began to walk just a little bit faster as he wrapped the heavy fabric of his cloak around himself a little bit more.

He needed to get to the guild to find Lucy, because so far, he had no idea where she was. Bickslow had tried her apartment as soon as he'd gotten back in Magnolia and been to his own to change, but no luck. He'd tried the park he knew she liked best, and he'd walked along every single canal in hopes she was just walking along a different one. He'd been to every single place he could think of, including Natsu's house and the dorms, but he couldn't find her.

He had wanted to leave the guild until last, because if she wasn't there, then he really would be out of ideas.

So when he finally reached the guild, walking through the iron gates at the front of the grounds and then through the heavy doors, he stopped and let them close slowly behind him. He looked over the tops of everyone, most of whom were busy eating or drinking. The usual to expect for being just after noon.

Mira was perched on a ladder that Elfman held steady, precariously balanced on the top rung as she carefully decorated the magnificent tree in the centre of the stage, the entire tree spanning the height of both floors. Lisanna was busy winding long lengths of tinsel around the tree, and the three Exceeds were all helping Mira with the other decorations (Happy was too busy eating candy canes, rather than actually help put them on the tree).

He looked over to where Natsu and Gray sat, somewhat civilised for once, though glaring daggers at each other from opposite sides of the table. Erza and Wendy were enthralled in their conversation, probably about Christmas sweets and treats judging by the array they had in front of them. But no Lucy.

Levy was busy with her nose in a book, Gajeel was leaning with his arm on her shoulder, Cana was drinking with her father, Macao and Wakaba, and Kinana was running the bar while talking to Makarov who was perched on one end of it. But still no Lucy.

Everyone else was there, and Bickslow had actually run out of ideas. He had no idea where she was, and even then, was she gone because she didn't want to be found? Had he screwed it all up so badly that she couldn't even bear to be around her friends and family? It felt as if something gripped his heart and squeezed, robbing him of breath as he thought of the damage he may have done. Bickslow just couldn't help but think that he had, and he had to force himself to finally take a few steps forward just to stop himself from falling to his knees. All he wanted to do was get all of his frustration and anger at himself out, because it was just growing inside of him and driving him insane.

It didn't help that he hadn't slept at all since finding out Lucy had left Akane. He just hadn't been able to shut his mind off, not when all he could think about was what exactly he was going to say to Lucy to make her see what it was all about. He knew what he needed to talk about, but he didn't know the words themselves. It had felt like he was standing in her apartment in the middle of the night all over again, desperately racking his brain for the right words.

The only difference this time was that Bickslow was sure he couldn't fuck things up any more than he already had, so did it really matter what he said? Things just couldn't get any worse.

So he slowly stepped forward and into the busy guild, and set his sights on the rest of Lucy's team. If anyone knew where she was, it would be them. He didn't know if they'd tell him, but he had to try. He had to start somewhere.

"Hey, guys," he started as he came up to their table. Only Erza and Wendy looked up, Gray and Natsu still stuck in what was apparently an intense staring competition. "Do you know where Lu—"

" _You!_ "

Bickslow was cut off by a voice (or more of a screech, really) that he instantly recognised as being Evergreen's, and a sharp pain in the side of his head as she grabbed hold of the hair on the side. "What the…? Ow, Ever!" Bickslow cried out as the Fairy mage began to drag him through the guild. "Ever, what the fuck? Let me go!"

He tried his best to pry the vice-like grip she had on his hair off, but it only got tighter and his head began to hurt more. He was almost certain he was going to be having to shave the other side off by the time she'd be done with him, because he swore she was going to pull every single strand out in one go.

Evergreen continued to drag the almost howling Seith mage through the guild, their fellow guild mates staring at them either in shock or sniggering as they went past, and she ignored all of his cries, curses, and threats from him. He didn't scare her, though he should be scared of her in that moment.

Mira looked down at the commotion when they went past the stage and headed for the stairs to the second floor, and seeing them, she quickly transformed into her Satan Soul to fly down to the stage floor. Just as quickly, she was back in her black dress, dropping the box of baubles to the ground and then chasing after Evergreen and Bickslow, joining Freed and Laxus who were trailing behind them.

Laxus was the last through the door to his office that had apparently been turned into a confession and now a scolding room, and he slammed it behind him just as Evergreen let go of the Seith mage.

"What the fuck is going on?" Bickslow muttered as he rubbed the side of his head and glanced between all of the scowling mages. All he'd wanted to do was find Lucy to explain things, not have his team and Mira stage an intervention of sorts, not that he knew what it was even about.

Evergreen came up to stand in front of Bickslow, and with a stare as sharp as Erza's swords, she looked up to meet Bickslow's worry-filled eyes. "You," she hissed, not so gently prodding the tall man in chest. "Are an absolute fucking moron."

"I second that," Laxus added.

"Tell me something I don't know," Bickslow mumbled.

"You seemed to screw up the one good thing you had in your life, even without realising it," Evergreen said, continuing to stare up at Bickslow.

He blinked a few times before he looked around the room and then back down to Evergreen. _The one good thing in my life?_ "If this is about Lucy, then I already know I did." It was the only thing that made sense, because undoubtedly, Lucy had become the best part about his life.

"Then why did you do it, huh?"

"I…" Bickslow wasn't sure what they already knew, and he wasn't exactly going to go into detail about the entire situation. The only thing that was obvious then was that they'd talked to her at some point after she'd left, and it meant that they knew he'd hurt her. "I didn't mean to," he mumbled. "It's complicated."

Evergreen quickly unfolded her fan and reached up to begin hitting Bickslow over the back of the head with it. "There's nothing complicated about you breaking her heart, you idiot."

"What?"

"Damn it, Bicks! She was in love with you!"

* * *

 **Hmm. So another cliffhanger of sorts, I suppose. I'm not going to apologise, considering these ones are nowhere near as evil as the ones I've had in the past. Hehehe.**

 **So, this is the last chapter for Hidden, meaning chapter 7 will be the beginning of Home. However, this is the last chapter that I have finished writing, meaning I won't have an update tomorrow. All of my chapters are planned out, so now it's just a matter of being able to find the time to write them.**

 **Anyway. Thank you for reading as usual, and don't forget to favourite/follow/review if you haven't! So many things could happen in the next chapters... I'd love to know what you think could happen. :D**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**


	9. (III) Where the Heart Is

**Ah. BixLu week... It was fun, truly. As someone who writes far too many BixLu stories, it was definitely nice to read some others for once. Heheh.**  
 **Anyway, even though this is the end of the week itself, it is not the end of this story. Still have quite a few stories and prompts to go through, so let's just get to it.**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 7: HOME**_  
 _ **WHERE THE HEART IS**_

* * *

There was a loud thud from the other side of the door, but it went ignored by everyone in the office as Bickslow stood there motionless, only blinking as he tried to figure out if he'd actually heard the words that Evergreen had said.

Laxus and Freed were almost as shocked as everyone standing just on the other side of the door. Laxus knew they were there, having heard their hushed whispers as they tried to hear what was being said just through the heavy oak door. The lightning Slayer knew that Gajeel and Natsu were out there, reciting every word to those who didn't have heightened senses, and he didn't quite blame anyone for being curious and wanting to stickybeak. It was really the only reason himself and Freed were in the room in the first place; they had wanted to know just why Evergreen had a reason to drag the Seith mage by his hair into Laxus' office.

Of course, they'd never quite expected Evergreen to say just what she had, and everyone apart from herself and Mira were confused as to how the man had supposedly broken Lucy's heart in the first place, but hey, they were getting to that. Hopefully.

They wouldn't be able to do that until Bickslow had snapped out of whatever daze he was in though. He could only blink as he tried to make sense of it all, but so far, he was doing a terrible job at it. It just didn't make sense, no matter how he thought about it. It had to be a joke. Something to make him feel even worse than he already did. After all, it would make sense for Evergreen to take Lucy's side if she even knew half of what had happened. Hell, Bickslow would take her side if it hadn't been him to hurt her.

But had he really broken her heart? Bickslow felt his heart throb painfully with the thought. Had he screwed things up more than he'd originally thought? Because damn it, if she'd actually been in love with him, then Bickslow had a reason to hate himself even more.

Maybe she really had, and it had been in front of him the entire time. Maybe he'd been too preoccupied with doing his best to keep his walls up and ignore his own feelings that he'd completely overlooked hers.

Or maybe he just didn't want to see them, and that's why he couldn't. Maybe he'd been too focused on the impossibility of there ever being anything between them that he'd ignored what was there. And that only made a bit of sense to Bickslow, because he'd always been able to see through everything she put up. He'd always known when there was something different, that there was something wrong or if she was hiding something – anything, really – but this? This, he just didn't know how he'd missed it.

Unless she'd done her damned hardest to keep it from him. Maybe she'd put her own walls back up, just because she had wanted to keep her feelings from the person she assumed could or would never feel the same way.

Maybe she'd been fine with keeping Bickslow as a friend, no matter how she felt.

Every single moment – every minute they'd spent together – was playing on a loop in Bickslow's head. He desperately searched his memories for anything that would help him figure it all out; how he could have missed it.

But then they all slowed down when it got to that night on the beach, and he closed his eyes, ignoring the way everyone in the room was still looking at him and waiting for him to do something. He barely even heard Mira mumbling something about Evergreen having broken him. All he could focus on was his memory. His pulse racing as the memories played before his mind's eye.

The water, the breeze… The feel of her body pressed up against his as he found himself drowning in the depths of her deep coffee eyes. All of it was sheer perfection, including the damned wave that had put there in the first place. And oh, did he regret that night, even more so just from the possibility that it had caused more damage than he'd thought, but that paled in comparison to the way everything fell to nothing around him again, even as he stood there in the office.

She was the epitome of beauty – perfection in the form of a blonde – and with everything falling away, Bickslow could finally see it clearly. It had been there. He didn't know how long, but it had been and if he'd bothered to look for it, he would have seen it.

If he'd cared just that little bit more, he would have been able to see through the walls that she lowered on that beach, just for him. It had been a risk, a chance, and she'd had her heart broken out of it. The hand clutching his heart tightened its hold and stole his breath.

Broken. Crushed. Shattered.

It didn't matter what word he used, because it didn't do anything for the guilt that just got worse with knowing that he'd been the one to do it and his heart ached with that knowledge.

He'd just royally fucked everything up.

He opened his eyes then, and seeing something that was close to concern in Evergreen's eyes, he whispered, "Where is she?" He still needed to find her to explain everything, regardless of the truth he'd just uncovered. It was still his priority. Bickslow fought to keep his voice even as he spoke, trying to keep a leash on his rampaging emotions.

But then everyone in the room turned their heads to look at each other, and as the Fairy mage shrugged, Bickslow began to think that Lucy just really didn't want to be found. That was, until Mira suddenly perked up. "She said something about going home," the eldest Strauss said.

Bickslow shook his head, his brow furrowing slightly. Nothing made sense. "I went there. She's not—" but then he froze, his gaze seemingly fixated on a spot on the floor when he remembered just what she'd meant.

 _He threw himself down onto the leather couch with a sigh as he placed the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, and then reached out to turn on the lamp just next to the end of the lounge. He wedged himself into the corner, crossing his legs under himself as the blonde next to him shifted to make herself comfortable. One leg was folded under her, her foot just behind her knee, only while slowly kicking her other leg forward. Bickslow tore his gaze away from the frankly mesmerising movement, and up to the bright lacrima vision screen just on the other side of the coffee table._

 _"Decided on anything yet?" he asked, his voice not doing anything to hide his boredom as he leaned to the side just to prop his elbow up on the armrest._

 _"Not yet," Lucy replied. Her eyes were glued to the screen as she scrolled through the selection with her hand loosely holding the controller for the lacrima vision screen. It was too hard to decide on a movie, especially when she had no idea what Bickslow liked. "I'm thinking a Christmas movie?"_

 _He shrugged, only reaching forward to grab the bowl of popcorn from the table and place it on a pillow in his lap. "I don't really care. Just pick whatever," he mumbled._

 _"Fine." With a sigh, she finally selected one she hadn't seen for a while. It was old, but it was corny and it was cute. When the opening sequence began, she placed the remote on the coffee table and sat back, only mindlessly reaching out to grab a small handful of popcorn. "Anyway," she paused just to throw a few pieces of the deliciously buttered popcorn into her mouth. She swore she could have tasted the barest hints of powdered sugar in there. "What do you and your team usually do for Christmas? You know, since it's only really a couple of weeks away now."_

 _"Um, well… usually we all just stay in the guild or go over to Laxus' place. Get drunk and laugh at each other." Bickslow wasn't really going to go into the fact that he usually spent a few days out of town, either coming back the day before or after Christmas. In truth, he wasn't even sure if he was going to go out of town that year at all. "What about you?"_

 _Lucy shrugged as her eyes remained glued to the movie titles. "I go back home on Christmas Eve," she said._

 _"Home?"_

 _"Well, the old estate," she corrected. "I guess it's not really home, since I ran away and all, but I still go back every year. Kind of a tradition I want to keep, I guess."_

 _Bickslow knew that she'd run away because of her father and her home life after her mother's death – oh, he'd heard all about it, because he'd wanted to – but he couldn't understand why she'd willingly go back. Especially when he knew that the estate had been bought by someone else. "Why do you go back though?" he asked softly, reaching for another few of the popped kernels._

 _"To see my mother," Lucy said. She didn't feel any shame in admitting that. But she looked down slightly then and began to examine her nails in her lap. "After she died, since it was around Christmas, I started going to her grave to talk to her, and after a while, it became a tradition, I suppose. She's not even buried there anymore, but her tombstone is still there, and the new owners don't mind me visiting, so I do."_

It was only then did Bickslow actually remember just what day it was. It was Christmas Eve, and he cursed himself silently for not remembering it sooner. It was the entire reason they were supposed to get back that day. After leaving Akane, Lucy was going to go straight to where the estate was, while Bickslow would go back to Magnolia. He didn't think it would be appropriate to join her anyway.

But he knew where Lucy was, and without a single word to anyone, he looked up and quickly bound across the room. Laxus took a step away from the door and let the Seith mage open it, and he couldn't suppress the smirk when Cana and Levy fell forward to the floor just by his feet.

"What the…?" Bickslow mumbled, staring down at the red-faced mages as everyone else in the hall scrambled away from the door. Gajeel and the rest of her team were all just by the opposite wall, doing their best to make it seem like they hadn't been eavesdropping at all. "Fuck it," he mumbled again. It didn't matter that they'd been listening. He just didn't care.

He had to tell Lucy why he'd done everything. He had to apologise as many times as he could.

He quickly made his way down the stairs, pushing past the other mages of the guild who were all rushing back down to the main floor to go back to their previous tasks. Bickslow could only faintly hear Elfman yell something about him being a man and telling her how he feels, but even if he was going to do just that, it wouldn't be because he wanted to. It would be because he had to. She deserved to know everything, no matter how much it hurt him to do it.

* * *

Lucy stared at the statue in front of her, watching as it slowly became dusted with the slowly falling snowflakes. It wasn't even a statue, really; it was a tombstone. It was her mother's tombstone.

It didn't matter that her mother was no longer buried where the statue of the angel stood, because to Lucy, this was where she always was. She was the eternal angel that continued to watch over her, no matter where she was, really. It didn't help that Lucy never did find out where her father had moved her mother's grave to after he'd sold off the last of the konzern. The original grave on her original home was the only one Lucy knew.

She'd been there for hours, too, just kneeling on the gravel path that ran throughout the cemetery on the grounds. She didn't smile, she didn't laugh. She just cried, and remained mostly silent. She couldn't really do anything else. She just felt… drained, almost. Like she'd put too much of herself out there, only to find out that it wasn't worth it.

Oh, and she still felt absolutely _humiliated_. But she couldn't hate Bickslow because of it. Never. It was all her own fault. It was her own stupidity that led her to feeling so emotionally drained and just humiliated.

More than anything though, all Lucy wanted was her mother. She needed her to tell her that Bickslow was just a stupid boy she'd get over. Hell, Lucy had needed her mother to tell her not to fall for the stupid boy in the first place, because Lucy could only believe that if she hadn't fallen so goddamn hard, then she wouldn't be in that situation in the first place.

She wouldn't have broken her own heart by falling for someone she shouldn't have, and she wouldn't hate herself for it. But the worst part about it all to Lucy was that she actually missed Bickslow already. Just the day before, she hadn't wanted to be anywhere near him at all. But now, she missed the way he could make her laugh and her face hurt from smiling too much, and she missed the way he made her feel.

She missed being _happy_ , and after being miserable for so long, she'd never wanted to let go of that happiness again.

Lucy could only sit there on the cold ground and stare up at the still pristine statue through eyes that could no longer shed any more tears. As she thought about how much she wanted her mother to be there to tell her that it was all going to get better, and that she'd eventually find a way to fall out of love with him, she ignored the chill that seemed to set into her very bones. The gravel dug into her bare knees, and the snow fell onto her exposed shoulders, but she ignored the way she was shivering. She was in no way dressed appropriately for the weather, and regardless of whether she'd expected it to snow that day or not, she just didn't care.

She didn't care because the cold numbed the pain she felt. It numbed her heart, and made it all just that little bit more bearable. It had always been about finding something to take her mind off of things, and right then, she needed that. She needed to stop thinking about that night where Bickslow had come to her apartment, and all she had running through her mind then was how she needed a knight in shining armour to come and piece her back together. Those stupid books had gotten the better of her, but damn, if she hadn't had just that.

Bickslow had pieced her back together; he'd been the one to fix her when he didn't even know what he was doing. Lucy couldn't even laugh about the man's strange resemblance to an actual knight, as weird as it was.

But it hurt, almost far too much considering she'd broken her own heart. All she wanted to do was get over it though. She wanted to get over Bickslow, and she wanted to be happy again. Once again, though, she was left having to try and do so alone and struggling with the small part inside of her that didn't want to get over Bickslow.

* * *

Bickslow had just about given up by the time the sun was almost hidden behind the mountain pass. He'd never known much about the Heartfillia Konzern – Lucy had never liked talking much about it, and he'd never really had an interest in the entire thing – but the land that her family had once owned? Fuck, Bickslow was certain it was the size of Magnolia, and he'd never particularly enjoyed walking from one end of town to the other. He was a lazy mage when it came to transport, but it was only because he had the babies.

Still, though, he'd never expected them to have so much land, and Bickslow was quickly running out of hope of finding Lucy, because he just couldn't seem to find the damn cemetery. But even then, even if he did manage to find it on the monstrous amount of land that no longer belonged to the Heartfilia Konzern, there was no telling Lucy would still be there. The entire afternoon had gone by the time he'd even gotten there from the guild, and then he'd been searching the property for at least half of that time. She could have left, and if she had, she could ultimately be anywhere.

Bickslow knew he still had to try. He wasn't going to leave, not until he'd scoured every inch of the property and found the fucking cemetery at least, no matter how exhausted he was and how cold his damn nose was from the weather.

But he did eventually come across the cemetery on the grounds with the help of his babies, and his eyes instantly went to the statue at the very end, surrounded by beautiful gardens and away from the rest of the graves. It was then that he noticed the blonde kneeling in front of it on the ground, and his heart began to race and he willed himself to move just that little bit faster.

He was so terrified of what would happen, but he needed to put that fear aside. He had to do it. For Lucy.

When he got closer though, his always quiet steps doing nothing in the way of making his presence known, he frowned, and his worry drowned out his fear. Bickslow quickly unclasped his cloak from around his own shoulders, only lightly shaking the snow from it before he draped it over the blonde's when he was close enough to do so. A skirt and a sweater that was falling of her shoulders was definitely not something she should be wearing in Winter, even if Fiore did have slightly bipolar weather.

"You'll get hypothermia," he said quietly as he sat down on the cold ground beside her.

Lucy had only slightly flinched when she'd felt the heavy cloak thrown over her, but as soon as she'd looked down at herself to see the familiar fur trim, she found herself calming down and pulling the fabric just that little bit tighter around herself. "T-Thanks…" Lucy sniffled, looking down at her hands in her lap.

All she wanted to do was run away crying, just because she didn't want to deal with Bickslow. But… There was also a part of her that just wanted to run to Bickslow, and that hurt more than she wanted it to. She didn't want to need Bickslow – she didn't want to want Bickslow – but she still did, even though she knew she shouldn't.

She couldn't even say that she didn't want him to be there in that moment, because there was a tiny part of her that didn't want him to leave. Lucy just didn't know what it was.

"I um… I need to explain some things," Bickslow whispered after a while of just sitting in silence, Lucy still refusing to look up or say anything at all. "A-And I need you to listen, even if it's the last thing you ever do for me… I know I fucked up, and I don't think I can ever apologise enough for it."

"You have nothing to apologise for."

He ran his hands through his mohawk then, partly due to his ever growing frustration and partly because he was certain he had snow in it, judging by how much he had on his sleeves. He didn't need his hair looking like he had a bad case of dandruff, even though it was really one of the things he should be worrying about the least. "No, I really do." He took a deep breath in, only to let it out shakily as he looked down to his own lap. He realised his hands were shaking where they sat over his crossed legs, and he had to clasp them together just to draw his focus from it.

Nervous didn't even begin to describe how he felt. He was almost petrified. So far past anxious, and he really, _really_ wished he had his visor. His chest felt almost tight as he felt his heart beating way too fast, but he had to push past it all. For Lucy, he'd do anything, and if that meant tearing down his walls and making himself vulnerable just once, then he'd do it. It didn't matter that he'd be letting the one person he'd wanted to let in for so long in the wrong way and it would almost be for nothing, nor did it matter that it would be the only time he let someone in like that. It just had to be done. There was no way avoiding it now.

But no matter how many times he told himself that in the second that felt like minutes, it didn't make any of it any easier. And as time seemed to slow down, making it all feel impossibly long and more painful than he ever thought it would be, Bickslow found himself wondering just where he started. It seemed almost logical to begin with an apology, but… Bickslow didn't want to start there.

"You asked me a while ago how I knew," he said as he closed his eyes. He knew where to begin, and it was right at the beginning. "You… You asked me how I knew you weren't happy, and you asked me why I cared, but I kept giving you horrible answers. You know, I'd say that I just knew, and that it didn't matter why I did."

Lucy felt the sting in her eyes as she turned her head away ever so slightly. "Bickslow, please…" she pleaded. She didn't think her heart could cope with any more lies. Not then, anyway.

"No, Lucy. I have to… I have to explain it all. Please… you deserve that… You deserve the truth," he whispered as he opened his eyes and looked to the blonde. He could feel his heart shattering into a million pieces as Lucy slowly turned back, and seeing her so hurt… All Bickslow wanted to do was tell her how sorry he was for making her feel that way in the first place. He'd apologise in every single language in the entire world – no, universe – if he thought it would help. But even then, he knew apologising wasn't going to help. Not those words, anyway. He needed to do what he'd come here to do, regardless of how much more damage he knew it would cause.

The good thing, though, was that it was mostly going to hurt him, and Bickslow knew he deserved that.

"I… knew, and I cared, because I was… No, I _am_ in love with you," he whispered again, and he could barely hear Lucy's quiet intake of breath beside him. Not over the sound of his own heart breaking and beating in his ears. "It was the little things, really," he continued, not giving himself a chance to convince himself to think about his words. It was the one time he was going to use his habit of nervous rambling around Lucy to his advantage. "Your um, your smile was the first thing I noticed what was different. I know I've probably said it before, like a million other people, but you really do have a beautiful smile, and, uh… It just… It just wasn't as bright one day. And then it was your eyes, I guess, they just… Oh god, it's really lame, I swear, but you uh, you had this sparkle in them, and then when you smiled they seemed to light up. And then it was your laugh, and I just really fucking love your laugh, because it's just so bright and bubbly and… and it was warm, and I loved hearing it."

Lucy couldn't help herself from smiling softly as she listened to Bickslow, and when she looked out of the corner of her eyes to see him looking down to his hands as he picked at the matte polish, her heart almost skipped a beat. The way he was smiling… It was because of her. He was smiling while he talked about her – why he loved her, even – but Lucy didn't know it was because his mind replaying every time he'd seen her face light up or her laugh had traveled across the guild, or each time she'd smiled at him or laughed with him (or at him).

"But um, they were all gone one day," Bickslow went on, losing the soft smile he never realised he'd had. Not until he saw all the times in the guild where she'd seemed hollow, and when she'd let everything fall when she thought no one was looking. "And I noticed, because… Because the girl I fell in love with was gone. And I sat there for weeks, trying to figure out just why no one else could see that you weren't happy, and I tried to figure out why no one else was paying attention, but I just couldn't. I still saw it all, though. I saw all the times you finally stopped forcing yourself to look happy when you thought no one was looking, and it… It broke my heart to see you that way for so long, because all I wanted was for you to smile and laugh again."

Lucy looked down to her lap again as she pulled the cloak around her even more, she wanted to be swallowed up in the small comfort his cloak brought her. She reached up with shaking hands to dry under her eyes when she felt the first tear fall and skate down her cheek. She'd never entirely known Bickslow had seen those times, not the ones where she'd been certain no one could see her, anyway.

"And I never wanted to tell you any of that, because it's weird and it's creepy. You know, the guy from across the guild who you never talked to who just happened to be in love with you for… for far to long. I just… I didn't want you to know any of it, because I never wanted you to hate me."

Even though it was the truth, it had been what Bickslow had always done. He'd always been a sort of outsider in the guild, just like the rest of his team, and he watched. He watched everyone and everything, in all honestly. But Lucy… Lucy he saw the most, but it was only because she drew everyone in. That warmth… Bickslow had always wanted that warmth, but he was okay with just seeing it from a distance. He'd had his team and his family, and he'd been fine with that. He was just the creepy pervert who made the weird jokes, and he'd accepted that because it was the persona he'd built up.

"But… I was always worried about what had you the way you were, and I'd just wanted to wait and hope for someone else to notice, but then I saw your soul. It was your soul that made me realise how bad things were," he whispered sadly.

"M-My soul?" Lucy asked.

Bickslow nodded. It was the first time he'd ever brought up her soul. Hell, it was the first time he'd brought up anyone's soul in an actual conversation. Ever. "Seems kinda fitting that I love souls though," he chuckled lightly. "Uh, anyway though…" Bickslow ran his hand through his hair again as he let out a shaky breath. He'd never thought talking about souls would make him so uncomfortable. "Souls can get damaged. It's really rare, because most people don't get that hurt in their life that it ever affects their soul."

"I'm guessing I was just one of those rare cases?"

"Yeah…" Bickslow nodded again. "Yours was… pretty bad, and it… it hurt to see it that way, because I'd always loved yours. It was always so bright and… and it was warm, and you could see it reaching out to touch other people's souls occasionally, and it was always nice seeing people instantly change when they got touched by your soul. It's just the kind of person you are. You're kind – far too kind, really – and you're loving and you care about other people more than yourself… Fuck, it's just one of the reasons I fell in love with you, really. It's like you don't even know how to be selfish at all."

Bickslow took another shaky breath before he looked up to the darkening sky above them. There was just so much to explain, and he couldn't put into words how glad he was that Lucy was actually listening – she was giving him a chance to explain everything – because he didn't think he deserved even that from her. Not after what he'd done and he felt his heart thud painfully in his constricted chest.

"But then I got curious one day, and I saw yours again, because I really hate looking at souls unless I have to. It just feels like I'm invading someone's privacy when I do that… but… I was just curious. But then I saw it, and I felt like my heart stopped. It was almost… shattered. It's just… It's just the only way I can describe it. It didn't even look like yours anymore, and I sat there and I tried to figure out just what had happened to you, because I didn't understand how you could be so hurt and no one could see it."

"S-Shattered?" Lucy whispered and he eyes widened marginally. She knew next to nothing about souls, but she was so far past intrigued, even if it was about her own soul.

He nodded again. "I just couldn't see you pretend to be happy anymore, not even for another day. I just… I hated seeing you like that. It was why I ended up going to your apartment in the first place, even though I never really intended to. I just found myself there, to be honest," he said softly. "But then when you came to talk to me later, and you said you felt broken, I believed it, and it made sense. I never did doubt how you felt, and you know that. I just… I just wanted to help you. It was what it was all about."

Lucy gingerly lifted a hand to softly touch his arm, and her heart ached when he looked down to it. She could finally see what Bickslow was doing, and even though it was all she'd wanted for so long – for him to finally let her in and tell her how he felt – she didn't like the way he was doing it. Lucy still wished that it was under different circumstances, because for the first time, she could see just how much pain Bickslow was in and it broke her heart all over again.

He smiled for just a second when he looked down to her hand on his forearm, but he couldn't look up to meet her eyes. Not then. He still had far too much to get through, so with another shaky breath, he said, "The only problem with it all was that I didn't know how to help you, and I never expected you to let me in the first place. I was just… I was just some guy in the guild who you never talked to. You had no reason to trust an almost stranger with everything, but… you did, for some reason, and I was happy when you said you wanted to talk about it all." And oh, had he been happy. Far too happy, considering the circumstances. "But even before that, I knew it was stupid coming to you. I knew I wouldn't have been able to do anything, because I wouldn't have been able to let you know that I care, because the person you knew just wasn't someone who had an ability to care about someone and notice things like that."

Her brow furrowed slightly as her confusion mounted. _What is he talking about? What person?_

"The Bickslow you knew… the one that everyone knew, really… it's not… it's not really me," he said quietly. Everything was coming out now, and he was more terrified than ever, and when Lucy sat back and moved her hand away, he had to stifle the urge to cry. He really did, because it was just another reminder that he'd pushed Lucy away. "I have these… walls," he continued. "I always have, because I don't like letting people in. The person in the guild… You know, the loud, obnoxious, arrogant asshole… it was never really me. It was just something that got built up over the years, because people liked that version better. It didn't help that I was absolutely terrified of letting anyone see who I really was, because… because e-everyone always leaves once they see who I am."

"Bickslow…" Lucy could feel her heart tremble and stutter as she watched Bickslow fall apart. All she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and tell him that it was all okay, and that she wouldn't have left if he'd let her in. But she couldn't do that. Not then. As much as Lucy wanted to comfort him they way he had comforted her, she had to let him finish.

He shook his head as he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "No, no, it's fine," he sniffled. "I've just… I've lost almost everyone I ever cared about in my life. Everyone who got too close and saw who I really was always ended up leaving, and it hurt. After a while, it just became easier to retreat in on myself. I built up these stupid fucking walls around myself, and I closed myself off from everyone. If I let no one in, then no one could leave and I wouldn't get hurt anymore. It's all it was."

He paused to wrap his arms around his own waist when he could feel his hands begin to tremble again, and he turned his head away slightly. He'd never felt more exposed in his entire life, not ever and it terrified him. "No one really liked the guy who was kinda shy and didn't know how to act around people, because I really don't like people at all. Not many, anyway. It didn't help that I was honestly just terrified of letting people in, because I was always so scared of them leaving and… and I didn't want that to happen again. It was why I kept you out."

"But… I wouldn't do that…" Lucy whispered. How could Bickslow think she would do such a thing?

He smiled sadly. "Part of me knew you wouldn't, but I was so worried about the idea of it that I tried my best to keep you out. I didn't want you to see who I really was, but I'm not very proud of who I am." Even now though, Lucy was the most understanding person he'd ever met. It was just one of the countless reasons she was way out of his league. Someone like him would never deserve someone like her. Not even close.

"But… It didn't really matter, because whenever I was around you, it was almost impossible to keep my walls up. There was always just this nagging voice at the back of my head that said it would be okay with you, because I trusted you and I wanted to believe that you were different from everyone else. That you wouldn't… that you wouldn't run and you wouldn't hate me like everyone who I let in eventually does…"

Lucy felt another tear roll down her cheek and she stopped herself from reaching out again. He'd wanted to let her in… but he hadn't, and that fucking hurt. But Bickslow was right. She barely knew what it meant to be selfish, and even then, when she just wanted to almost scream at Bickslow that he should have trusted her and let her in, she was more worried about Bickslow himself. She could see how hard it was for him to open up like that.

"But it didn't matter," Bickslow whispered. "Because I couldn't let you in anyway, because if I did, you'd have seen that I loved you, and I didn't want you to know. I never wanted you to know, because I wanted to get over it. I wanted to get over you." _But hey, that ship has long since sailed._ _That doesn't really need to be brought up._ "And it got so hard to do that when you wanted to spend time with me, even though I never figured out just why you did in the first place. I couldn't get over you when I spent almost every second of every day with you, and when you let me in… I just fell in love with you even more. I didn't care that it actually hurt me to have you so close, to know that I could never have you in that kind of way, because I loved spending time with you as a friend, and I never wanted to lose you like that."

And oh, was that painful to admit out loud, especially to know that it was all in vain. "I was so scared of losing you as a friend that I tried my best to keep my walls up, even though they just… They kept coming down around you. I let you in more than anyone else, and I never intended to. You saw… You saw parts of me that no one else has, whether you really knew it, and I really do trust you," he whispered again as he looked down to his lap again, his hands clasped together again. "But none of that mattered, because I was too scared of losing you and fucking things up between us that I ended up _pushing_ you away."

Lucy looked back down to her own lap then too and she closed her eyes as she pulled the cloak around her even more, burying her nose in the soft fur of the collar. The comforting smell of him filling her nose, slowly mending the cracks in her heart. It was what he'd done, wasn't it? He'd pushed her away… but she still blamed herself for it. She still thought it was her own stupidity that let it happen. She couldn't let Bickslow know that though. Not then.

"And… and on the beach… and that night…" His voice wavered only slightly when he could feel the guilt rise within him again. "I never meant you were a mistake. I never meant to use you like that… I just never meant for you to get hurt at all, but it was my fault that you did, and by the time I'd wanted to come and explain everything to you, you'd left. I just… I can't say sorry enough. For everything. I never meant to fuck everything up. Not like this."

With a final glance to his side, Bickslow pushed himself up from the ground and he dusted the snow from his shoulders and his hair as best he could, and when Lucy looked up at him, he finally met her gaze. He could feel his heart breaking all over again when he looked into her eyes, because he could see her pain. It was all because of him, and he'd never be able to atone for that. He would just have to live with it.

"I know you probably hate me—"

"I don't hate you," Lucy whispered.

"You should," Bickslow said with a frown as Lucy slowly climbed to her feet. "You were right. All I've done is lie to you. I… I hid, and I pretended to be someone I wasn't… and… and you never deserved that. You never deserved to be hurt, and that's what I did."

Lucy nodded in agreement for just a second before she looked up with a soft smile. Her heart hurt, and she was sure her stomach was doing somersaults, but now it was her turn to open up. She had to do that. "You didn't hurt me," she whispered as she stared into the crimson eyes; the same ones she'd only seen once up close, and the same ones she'd instantly fallen in love with on that beach. "I… I hurt myself, really, and I could never hate you."

"I don't understand…"

Her smile got brighter at his cluelessness. _It's now or never, Lucy._ "You know that all I wanted was for you to let me in. I wanted you to trust me like I trust you with everything."

"And I wanted to… I just… I was scared…" he mumbled. He was so open right then, and he could do nothing to curb his desire to just curl up into a ball and hide. It always went back to hiding…

"I know that now, Bicks," she whispered, raising one hand to lightly cup the side of his jaw. "And I really wish you could have said all of this sooner, but I'm still glad you trusted me enough to come out of your shell. It was all I ever wanted."

Bickslow frowned again as he lowered his eyes. "Only because I know that nothing I say could have made things any worse than they already are," he mumbled again.

"I suppose, but even so, I still don't hate you. I could never hate you, not when you were the entire reason I was able to smile again."

"… What?" Bickslow's eyes snapped open, shock written on his face and laced in that one word.

Lucy smiled again as a light blush crept up on her cheeks, and it wasn't because of the weather. "You asked me a while ago if I'd found something that worked, but that something was _you_. I um… I didn't really know for a while just what it was, but… I was happy around you. You were really the only person who could make me smile or laugh over these last couple of months, and just being around you made me believe everything would be okay." She could only giggle when Bickslow just continued to stare at her, only blinking in his confusion. _Oh, god. I fell in love with an idiot._ "When you said before how you were okay with just being friends, because you didn't want to lose me and screw everything up… It was the same for me too, Bicks."

Bickslow wasn't sure his heart was even beating any more. That, or he wasn't breathing. It was one of the two, but he just wasn't sure, because once again, it was like everything around them had fallen to nothing. The cold, the setting sun, the snow… Hell, his own fucking heartbeat. None of it existed. Nothing apart from Lucy, and the way the tiny snowflakes were stuck in her golden hair and how that same sparkle he'd loved so much was in her eyes.

 _Is she… Does she…_ He couldn't begin to comprehend what she was even saying, and what he almost hoped she'd say.

Her laugh brought him from his thoughts though, and at the sound, he realised his heart was actually beating, because he felt it skip a beat. "Do you need me to spell it out for you?" she giggled.

"I… Uh…" _Yeah, nice one. Now's the time you're at a loss for words. Looks like you've used up your daily word limit, moron._

"I can't hate you for anything because I love you, you idiot," she said softly. Even though she'd planned on never saying those three little words, and even though she suddenly felt more nervous than she had in the last two months alone, she wasn't really scared about it. It didn't bother Lucy that it was just another huge chance to take, especially when the last one had ended so dismally for her, because the words that Bickslow had said earlier echoed in her head.

"You… Why?" _She_ actually _loves me? Still? What… That is… What?!_

Lucy rolled her eyes. "When I figure that one out, I'll let you know," she laughed. It was really something she hadn't quite figured out, but… it was something she didn't quite want to know. She liked the mystery of it all.

"You shouldn't. I'm not… It would have been with… with the person I'm not… The person I pretended to be… Not me…"

She reached up to wind her arms around his neck, and when Bickslow dropped his head to rest his forehead against hers with a quiet sigh, she smiled softly. "I don't think that matters," she whispered. "To be honest, I think I fell in love with the real you without even knowing it." And she thought she had, because after everything he'd said – where he'd made himself completely vulnerable and exposed for what Lucy could see as being the first time in a long time – she felt like she loved him more. It was just another thing she couldn't explain, and she was okay with that.

"I… You're…" Bickslow sighed again as he slowly wound his arms around her waist just under his cloak, it felt like a weight had been lifted, if only partially. "You're amazing; you know that?" Amazing didn't even come close to what Lucy was, but it was a start.

She nodded with a quiet giggle. "So I've been told."

Bickslow closed his eyes as he focused on his breathing for just a moment, trying his best to calm himself down. His heart was beating far too fast, he still felt like his hands would be shaking if he weren't holding on to Lucy, but… he wasn't as scared as he had been. His anxiety over finally letting his walls down was slowly going down, and he knew it was all because of Lucy.

When he opened his eyes again to look into hers, he realised that it hadn't entirely been about him fixing her. She may have been broken, and he'd seen it, but so was he. He'd always been broken, because it was just the way he was, but maybe, just maybe, Lucy had been fixing him all that time. Hell, maybe she was fixing him right then, because as Bickslow stood there, just holding on to her, he remembered all those times he'd felt his walls crumbling and that nagging voice in the back of his head telling him to let her in had been just that little bit louder than usual. All along, he'd somehow known that Lucy would be the one person that wouldn't leave. She would be the one person he could trust with everything, and he could finally be himself.

And it was enough to make him want to cry, because for the first time in his life, he felt like he'd found someone who really would unconditionally love him for who he was. To think that that person was Lucy Heartfillia wasn't at all that surprising, but still, it surprised Bickslow, just a little bit.

He'd been so sure that he'd fucked everything up beyond all repair, and he'd been prepared to lose Lucy forever, but now… Now he couldn't have imagined ever being able to walk away from that. Not without hurting himself even more than he already had.

But as he closed his eyes again, feeling like he really was going to begin to cry, he dropped his head to Lucy's shoulder, only pressing a light kiss to her cheek before be buried his face against her neck and in the fabric of his cloak. "I love you," he murmured.

It was the first time he'd said it in… years, admittedly, but it didn't scare him. Not then, not with Lucy. Because with Lucy, he felt… safe, almost. And as strange as it was to Bickslow, he almost felt like he was home, even though he was standing in the middle of a cemetery.

But the location itself wasn't what was important, and Bickslow knew that. It was Lucy that made it feel that way. She was warm, kind, and she loved him for who he was (for whatever reason). That was what Bickslow had always thought a home should be – warm, kind, loving, and safe. Though, he'd never exactly expected to find that within a person.

* * *

 **If only I could reach into my computer screen and pull out characters to hug them... Seriously.**  
 **So anyway, this was obviously the first chapter for Home. Chapter 8 will be under Home as well, and then the rest you'll just have to wait and see.**

 **Please remember to review/favourite/follow, too! I'd love to know what you thought of this one.**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**


	10. (III) New Beginnings

**Whoop! A new chapter! Huge thank you to bixlu lover, again and as usual, for being awesome and helping with this chapter!**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 8: HOME**_  
 _ **NEW BEGINNINGS**_

* * *

A content sigh escaped Lucy's lips as she found herself slowly being pulled from her pleasant dreams. When the morning light – not that Lucy was entirely sure it was still even morning. She had no idea what the time was, but she was almost certain it was closer to noon than it was her usual wake up time – shone through the open dark curtains, she closed her eyes before she shielded them with her hand. She wasn't quite ready to face the harsh sunlight. Not yet, anyway.

She did her best to turn to her other side, as to not disturb her bed mate too much. Slowly and carefully, Lucy rolled onto her back first, and then to her other side. A soft smile graced her lips when she felt the arm that was draped over her waist tighten around her and pull her in just that little bit closer. Lucy shifted again ever so slightly to make herself comfortable. She'd felt the same thing multiple times over the night, whether it be just to pull her closer, curl around her, or even just bury his face against the back of her neck. Apart from the slight movements, Bickslow had barely moved after he'd fallen asleep, and Lucy didn't mind. Not one tiny bit.

She liked how perfect it felt to be wrapped tightly in his arms, even though it was just something as simple as cuddling. She'd hugged Bickslow before, but this was different. It was new, and Lucy liked it. A lot. They hadn't even done that or been that close while in Akane. Hell, Lucy had probably spent more time cuddling Natsu in her own bed than anyone else, and it wasn't always of her own accord. But with Bickslow, it really did just feel perfect to her. Like it was the most natural thing to do in the entire world.

She liked how close she was to him, and when she'd spent so long just trying to get him to let her in, just physically being close made her heart want to melt. She liked how warm he made her feel and most of all she liked how he made her feel safe. She trusted Bickslow – with her life– and even with just his arms around her and holding her close, she felt like she was protected from everything.

As Bickslow shifted again, only nuzzling his face into the crook of her neck, Lucy smiled again. He loved how warm and soft she felt, and oh, did he love the way she smelled. It was like vanilla and cinnamon, and that alone just made Bickslow want to stay there and feign sleep for longer.

Gingerly, she raised the hand she had resting on the mattress in the small space between them, and delicately let her fingers rest against his cheek. She loved how peaceful he looked. Almost defenceless, even, and it made her entire heart and even her soul warm. He trusted her with everything, and it really was all she'd wanted. She didn't want those walls separating them, and now, even with something as simple as seeing Bickslow asleep, there was nothing between them.

There were no walls and no more hiding, and in that moment, Lucy couldn't have been happier. There was a levity in her heart that had her smiling as she gazed at the sleeping soul mage.

A soft giggle bubbled up and out of her when she brushed her thumb across his cheek, and the corner of his mouth pulled up into a slight smile. "So you actually are awake, huh?" Lucy laughed as the arm around her pulled her even closer until she was flush against him.

"Maybe," Bickslow murmured another soft smile on his lips as Lucy began to slowly comb her fingers through his cobalt hair. "I just didn't want to move. Making the most of it before you leave, I suppose."

She stopped then, and she dropped her hand back to his cheek. "Bicks, look at me," she whispered. When he refused to open his eyes, she quickly moved a hand to his shoulder and pushed him to roll onto his back, hooking a leg over his hips so she was straddling him with his face in her hands.

"Lucy, just don't. Please," he mumbled his voice low as he slowly opened his eyes with a groan. He could barely see the pain on Lucy's face as he did his best to look elsewhere in the room and ignore how she was sitting. That proved to be feat in and of its self as her hips shifted slightly, bringing her core to graze over his covered arousal.

Lucy shook her head. "No, Bickslow," she whispered again and there was a veiled hardness to her tone as she turned his head, forcing him to look up at her. "You don't get to do that. I told you last night that I'm not leaving. Not unless you want me to."

"Everyone always leaves," he whispered. He was terrified of Lucy leaving, now so more than ever. He had let his walls down and been open with her, let her into his heart. The thought of her leaving created a tiny fissure in the barely healed muscle.

It was always that fear. The fear of being abandoned, that wormed its way to the forefront of his mind; and right then he couldn't push it away. It didn't matter that all he wanted was for Lucy to stay, because he just really couldn't help but believe she would eventually leave. Everyone always left, and he always got hurt. With Lucy, though, it would be a million times worse.

And ultimately, he was protecting himself from getting hurt. Bickslow believed that if he accepted that Lucy would eventually leave. No matter how he felt and no matter how she felt, then it would just make things that little bit easier. If he expected her to leave, it wouldn't hurt that much when she finally did.

All he wanted to do was enjoy that one moment, where it was just them and it was peaceful. Bickslow didn't want to pop the little bubble of happiness that surrounded them; he didn't want to wake up. He didn't want to go anywhere. He just wanted to spend the next few hours in bed with the one person he still couldn't let himself entirely believe he would ever have. Was that too much to ask?

"I'm not everyone," Lucy said softly. Her fingers slowly and lightly brushing against his cheeks as her cinnamon eyes bored into his crimson ones. She couldn't begin to describe how much it hurt to have Bickslow think she'd leave, especially after everything. "I'm not going to leave and I'm not going to hurt you. I don't want to ever do that."

"But…"

Lucy placed her fingers over his lips to silence him and absent-mindedly swiping her tongue across her own. "No buts, Bicks. I love you, remember? And that means I love you for who are you. What do I need to do to make you believe that?"

Bickslow frowned as he looked up to the blonde, and he could see the sincerity in her eyes. Hell, he could hear it in her voice, and he could feel it in his heart. That same warmth from her soul, from her, had him wanting to do nothing but believe every single word she said. He just… couldn't. Maybe it was because he really did just want to accept that Lucy was like everyone else and would eventually leave that had him so hesitant to enjoy it as something more than just a moment. Or maybe it was because he was going to be waiting for the day for Lucy to stop loving him, because he could see it happening, whether she couldn't see it yet or not.

So what if she said she wasn't going to leave and that she wasn't going to hurt him? That's what everyone said, and look where he was now. He'd been destroyed far too many times in life to count, and he knew that Lucy would be the last straw. When she left him she would take all that was left of him with her. Bickslow had held on to tattered remnants of the person he once was, but over the years, most of those had disappeared. He'd ultimately become a shell of who he really was, and even then, he didn't think Lucy knew just how bad he was.

 _Of course she doesn't know._

How was she to know when there were still plenty of things Lucy didn't know about him? It was that knowledge that had Bickslow beginning to panic in that moment and he forced his eyes away again. She knew almost nothing about him as a person because he'd kept it that way, but what happened once she began to learn about all of those things he kept hidden?

 _She'd leave like everyone else…_

He really didn't want that to happen. Lucy was the one person he couldn't lose or push away again, but he really was at war with himself. His heart and head at odds with each other. He wanted nothing more than to just let go of everything, let her love him and let her in some more. Because he still did believe that Lucy would be the one person to love him unconditionally, but he still couldn't help but worry about what he saw as the inevitable.

He just didn't know what to do.

Lucy could see the slight shift in him though, and it had her worrying again, her heart clenching with fear. Without his walls, she could see it all. She knew that he wanted to let her in again, but he was worried about her leaving. She could see that, and it hurt. She didn't want Bickslow to worry about any of that, because she just wanted him to be happy.

And it was just a little funny that it had all started out with Bickslow wanting nothing more than to see Lucy happy again, but now it was the opposite way around. He'd fixed her heart and soul. Now Lucy was determined to fix Bickslow, and she would do whatever it took to do the same.

She smiled softly before she leant down and gently pressed her lips to his in a tender kiss that she hoped would knock down the rest of his walls. So when he slowly wound his arms around her waist, she smiled against his lips and let herself be pulled down closer to his chest. "I'm not going anywhere," she murmured as she pulled back just enough to have their lips barely touching. "I promise." And Lucy never went back on her promises. Ever.

 _Believe her. Just believe her… Give her a chance. She's the one person who won't hurt you, and you know it. Believe in that._

He had to listen to his heart convince him of it all over and over, but after a moment, he nodded silently, and the way her eyes lit up as her smile became brighter had the room dimming in comparison. He had to believe what his heart, or maybe it was his own soul, was telling him; Lucy was the one who would unconditionally love him. She wouldn't hurt him – not intentionally, at least – and she wouldn't leave. She was _home_ , and with her, Bickslow felt safe. He had someone who loved him right in front of his face – someone who had loved him all along – and he needed to believe in her.

He had to do his very best to keep his walls down. For good. With Lucy, there was no more hiding. Not then, not in that moment with her smile warming him from the inside, and not ever again. He wasn't going to accept that she would eventually leave, and he wasn't going to wait for her to stop loving him.

No, he would just… be happy with things were. Or at least as happy as he could be. He would remember that right then, Lucy wasn't going anywhere.

"You really are amazing," Bickslow murmured as he reached up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering on her neck. "I just… This is hard for me, and I'm sorry." No more hiding meant no more hiding how he felt, and right then, that just meant saying whatever was on his mind. Well, most of it anyway. "I'm still scared that… that you'll leave or I'll push you away again, and I don't want that to happen…"

"I know, but that's just not going to happen, okay?" she whispered before quickly kissing his lips again before sitting up with a bright smile. "Now, no more being negative. I'm not going to let you ruin Christmas or become the Grinch."

Bickslow blinked up at her before realisation hit him square in the face and he really couldn't help but slap his palm against his forehead. He truly had no idea why he kept forgetting what day it was, but he had a feeling it had something to do with his thoughts having not been in a logical order the last two days and having only just caught up on some much needed sleep. "Sorry," he mumbled with a sheepish smile that turned into a mischievous grin as he slowly reached out to toy with the hem of Lucy's shirt where it sat at the top of her thighs. "So…. I'm convinced you look good in anything…"

"Oh? Do I now?" Lucy giggled, a faint blush dusting her cheeks.

"You do." He paused to begin to lift the dark fabric up just a tiny bit. He really was convinced Lucy looked good in anything, and as much as he really did enjoy seeing her in one of his shirts, he had better ideas. "But… I'm convinced _this_ will look better on the floor."

His eyes darkened and he swallowed thickly as the fabric was lifted away and every inch of Lucy's porcelain skin came into view. Bickslow's hands slid down her arms and sides to rest on her hips, his eyes drinking in the sight she made. The light filtering in from the window made her hair shine like spun gold and it gave her a seraphic glow. Threading his fingers in her hair Bickslow sealed her plump lips with his own.

* * *

Lucy hummed in thought as she sat herself down on one of the bar stools at the counter, and she turned away from where Bickslow was busying himself with getting breakfast ready, to face an abysmally bare corner of his apartment just by his sofa. Sure, there was actually a side table there with a few more bits and pieces and a lamp, but Lucy couldn't help but think that it needed something more.

And she knew exactly what it needed, and it had honestly been bugging her for weeks. It drove Lucy insane that Bickslow didn't have a Christmas tree; it was like that corner of his apartment was begging to have one.

She sighed when she spun back around knowing full well that Bickslow's reasoning for not having a Christmas tree was because he couldn't be bothered with one. She watched Bickslow whisk some eggs with a few spices and herbs in a glass bowl. It was almost a miracle that she even convinced him to get out of bed in the first place, because she knew that he really would have preferred to stay there all day. Sans clothes, if he got his way.

Lucy however didn't want to spend her day in bed – with or without clothes – because she had better things to do. Like shower, which as it turned out, had also been with Bickslow, sans clothes. And eat breakfast which was actually brunch, which Bickslow was working on, because Lucy had made it quite clear on multiple occasions that she loved his cooking. He was actually surprisingly good at it, and it was really part of the reason they'd spent more of their time together in his apartment rather than hers, because it forced Bickslow to cook.

But then there was also the part of her day where Lucy still needed to try and convince Bickslow that she wasn't leaving. He didn't need to make the most of any moments with her, because she really did love him. She didn't want to leave and she didn't want to hurt him, and more than anything, she wanted Bickslow to let go of the fear that she would.

Lucy knew that Bickslow wanted to do just that too; he wanted to believe that Lucy was different, but it really was hard for him. She knew exactly how he felt about her and everything else, as he did with her. There was just no more hiding and no more walls. Even though it had all come about in a way that Lucy had never quite wanted, she really was glad they had gotten to that point. All she had wanted was for Bickslow to let her in. He'd finally trusted her enough to tear down his walls and put everything on the line. And it had all been for her and because of her.

From hours of just talking, between the train back to Magnolia and then just sitting up in his bed when all he'd wanted to do was curl up and hide under the blankets, she knew it all.

Sure, there were still plenty of things that she really did need to learn about Bickslow, like how he'd gotten to such a point in his life in the first place, but she wasn't as worried about pushing any of that. Lucy trusted Bickslow to tell her about everything else she wanted to know about the real Bickslow when he was ready. She knew it wasn't something that was going to be dealt with quickly, either. He would need his time, but Lucy didn't mind. She would still be there, because she really wasn't going anywhere.

Lucy wanted to see Bickslow be happy, and she wanted him to be _truly_ happy. She didn't want him constantly worrying about being hurt or left alone again, and she didn't want him closing himself off just that tiny bit as a means to protect himself.

Bickslow had done so much for her, and Lucy had done her best to explain that to him, and now it was her turn to be there for him. He'd pieced her back together, heart and soul, and now she was going to do the same thing. Bickslow had been the one to make her feel like she wasn't broken, and Lucy was determined to make Bickslow see that he wasn't anywhere near as broken as he thought. After all, he'd been the one to tell her that everything can be fixed.

He had fixed her, and now it was her turn to repay the favour. Because she loved him, and she loved him the way he was. And it was strange really; that she'd somehow fallen in love with someone she consciously didn't know all that well. But maybe it was the author and hopeless romantic in her that made her want to believe that her heart and probably even her soul had been able to see through all of his walls all along, and made it possible for her to fall for him. In her head and heart it made sense.

But she really was determined to help Bickslow. She had to help him see that she wasn't going to leave unless he wanted her to, and she knew that that was the last thing he wanted.

"So what were you thinking of doing later today?" Lucy finally asked as she leant forward to rest her chin in her palm with her elbow on the counter.

"I hadn't quite thought of that, to be honest. I would have been happy staying in bed all day." He paused, turning to grab a saucepan from another cupboard. "But," he added as he looked over his shoulder to see the blonde with a strangely adorable pout. Bickslow wanted to pull that slightly swollen lower lip between his teeth and tease it with his tongue. Mentally shaking the thought aside he continued, "I know you don't want me doing that, so I'm not."

Lucy smiled softly. _Hey, I'm getting through. Slowly…_ "Good," she beamed. "But really? Nothing at all? Don't you at least want to go to the guild or hang out with your team?"

"Uh…" At the mention of the guild, Bickslow suddenly lifted his head as his brow furrowed, and he lifted his hand to scratch the back of his head, all while keeping his back to Lucy and his head slightly turned away. "About the guild…"

"Bickslow…" She got up from the stool and slowly walked around the breakfast bar, her bare feet carrying her across the wooden floors. She didn't like that he was being hesitant. Not one bit, because if anything, it just made her uncomfortable. "Don't be like that," she said softly as she slid in to the small space between him and the counter, and she slowly wound her arms around his waist. "Come on, no more secrets, remember? Tell me about the guild. Please."

He sighed when her soft eyes met his when he looked down, and he nodded slowly. "Right, yeah," he mumbled. _No more secrets and no more hiding of any kind. Not with Lucy._ If that just meant telling her that the guild was probably going to be a bit of a problem for a little while, then so be it. "So… You know how I wanted to come and find you yesterday to explain everything?"

She nodded with a small smile before she let out a squeal of surprise when Bickslow quickly lifted her up from the ground, his hands on her hips before he turned to sit her down on a free section of the breakfast bar behind them with his hands on either side of the counter. A soft heat rising in her cheeks as he stood between her spread legs.

"So you could tell me that you love me," she giggled.

"Yeah, that too." The corner of his lips pulled up into a small smirk with her playful spark, and it made his heart swell with love and happiness. It was like he was seeing a whole new side of Lucy since he'd let down his walls, and he really did love that part of her. Just as much as he loved the rest of her, and so far, Bickslow really was convinced there wouldn't be a part of her he wouldn't love.

"So what does that have to do with the guild?"

"Well, when I got back from Akane, it kind of slipped my mind that you'd be at your mother's grave. So, I looked for you around Magnolia. Like, everywhere I could think of, because I needed to find you to talk to you and—" He suddenly paused when he remembered the necklace that was sitting in a pocket of his cloak still. It had completely slipped his mind once he'd seen Lucy and let her wear it to stop her from getting hypothermia or something.

Lucy quickly found herself growing concerned as his brow furrowed when he stopped talking and he continued to blink as he stared at the space just behind her. "Bicks?" she whispered, blindly reaching down to lift one of his hands and hold it between her own. "You okay?"

Bickslow's eyes went back to being trained on Lucy's and he nodded. "Yeah, sorry. I just remembered something else. I'll come back to that in a minute." He waited until she nodded before he briefly glanced to his hand and the way she was rubbing small circles on it, before he looked back up and smiled softly. "Uh, so anyway," he continued. "I couldn't find you anywhere, and I mean, I looked everywhere I could think of, and when I still couldn't find you, I went to the guild because I thought your team would know where you were."

"Okay…" Lucy still didn't think the way Bickslow had suddenly acted made sense, but she knew there was more for it.

"But before I could ask your team anything, Ever kind of dragged me off to have a go at me… With Mira."

"Oh."

"Yeah. _Oh_." He saw the way her face dropped, and his own twisted into a slight grimace. He knew that she was figuring it out now, even if it was barely and slowly. "So… you know, when you said you loved me last night, even though I still have no idea why…"

Lucy looked down to hide her disappointment. "You already knew I did," she whispered. It didn't matter that she'd never really expected to ever say it to Bickslow, because it still hurt to know that she hadn't completely surprised him with how she felt, regardless of how he'd acted at the time.

"Hey, that's not entirely true though," Bickslow said softly as he lifted his other hand from the counter to gently tilt her head back up, his fingers gently holding her chin and his thumb tracing along her lower lip. "She only told me because I was being a moron and couldn't see what was right in front me. I didn't believe her though. Not until _you_ said it."

"You do believe it now though, right?"

Bickslow smiled before he leant forward to softly press his lips to hers. "Of course. I still don't know how or why though," he whispered.

She let out a watery laugh as she nodded. It was something she still didn't know how or why it had happened, but it was still something she was fine with not finding out. If anything, it would be the one thing she'd keep as a mystery when it came to her relationship with Bickslow. Which, as it turns out, was still something that had yet to be fully determined.

He cleared his throat then. "But… It might be wise to avoid the guild for a little while."

"Okay, now I'm _really_ confused…" Lucy mumbled. From her team, to Evergreen blurting out that she loved Bickslow even though the two were supposed to have kept it to themselves, Lucy really had no idea why the guild should be avoided. Nothing was quite adding up, and she didn't know what else there was to know.

"Well, when Ever told me, the rest of the guild was kind of on the opposite side of the door… Listening to every word…"

"Oh god! The guild…" Her eyes were wide and she felt her stomach tie itself in knots. "The entire guild knows about it?" she asked. _No, no, no… This isn't happening…_ She could deal with a few people knowing, but the entire guild? She wasn't going to be able to walk in there without running out again.

Bickslow nodded with another tight grimace. "Yeah, kinda," he said. "Which means if we or even just you go, then they're all going to be waiting to see what happened yesterday afternoon."

She sighed as Bickslow brought his forehead down to rest on hers, a soft smile on her lips. "I guess that's true, but even if we avoid the guild for a little while, you know it's just going to make things worse," she mumbled.

"I suppose. So what do you want to do then?"

Lucy shrugged. "I-I don't know… I mean… Do you think we could get away with saying we're just friends anymore?"

He chuckled quietly at the teasing question. "Lucy, baby, I think the only people who were buying that in the first place were us," he murmured. Bickslow knew as well as Lucy did that almost everyone assumed they were something more, but they really had ignored it, because they had both been ignorant of each other's feelings. Which of course they had only recently realised; they were working on that though. "So no, I don't think we could get away with that anymore. Especially when I'm pretty sure Ever and Mira have probably already convinced the guild otherwise, assuming anyone else did believe it."

"So… If we can't use that, then what?" Lucy asked. She looked up through her long eyelashes at him as heat pricked her cheeks. They weren't just friends, and they both knew it. Not anymore, anyway.

"W-Well, I mean… That's up to you, I guess…"

"I don't want it to be up to _me_ though. I want it to be up to _us_."

His heart was thumping in his chest as he stared into the deep honey orbs. "You really want it to be like that?" he whispered, almost too shocked to have his voice any louder in case he was completely missing what she was saying.

Her smile then had Bickslow wanting to pull her into his arms and never let go. "Of course I do," Lucy said softly. "You know I love you, and I want to actually be with you. I want there to be an _us_. Finally."

"If that's what you want, then that's what we'll be."

"But is that what _you_ want?" Lucy asked, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

Bickslow watched her worry her lower lip and was again plagued with thoughts of wanting to claim it for himself. With that thought in place he took her face between his hands and smiled softly. "As long as I get to be with you and do this," He paused to capture her lips quickly, only separating enough to have them brushing past one another with each syllable, and whispered, "Then I don't mind one bit." And it was the truth. As long as he had Lucy, he didn't care.

He was still trying to wrap his head around the impossibility that they were even there like that in that moment, because he'd spent so long convincing himself it would never happen. He'd never have the woman he loved, and he'd never be able to tell her just how much he cared. But… he did. It was the impossible outcome to Bickslow and some small part of him was still waiting to wake up from this perfect dream. He was still damn glad it had happened, even if it had been brought about by some less than perfect circumstances.

Still, though, Bickslow had to remind himself that he had to try. He had to try and be less negative about it all, and he had to believe that things would work out. He had to believe that Lucy wouldn't leave, and he hoped that taking that chance to actually become something more would be worth it in the end, because he really did want to enjoy it all. He wanted to be truly happy with Lucy in his life, and he didn't want to be scared of pushing her away or hurting her again.

He just had to take it all one step at a time, and he was okay with that. He was okay with taking things slowly and doing so carefully, because now he knew that he'd have Lucy. And as long as he had Lucy with him, he knew that things would turn out okay.

She giggled quietly when she dropped her arms from where they'd wound around Bickslow's neck, and reluctantly pulled her lips away from his again when she was sure she was going to run out of air. "Now that _that's_ sorted out," she laughed, feeling something close to relief wash over her to know where they stood. Sort of. "How about you tell me about this thing you forgot about?"

Bickslow blinked back at her for a moment before as he tried to think of what she was talking about, then realisation struck him and his face split into a wide grin. "Oh! Right, that. I'll be back in a second," he said before quickly turning to dash down the hall and back to his bedroom.

He looked around the room for the dark cloak, and when he spied it draped over the dresser at the foot of his bed where another lacrima-vision screen sat, he leant to the side from where he stood by the door to pick it up. Bickslow quickly found the necklace in the pocket, along with the two folded up pieces of paper that would tell Lucy how to reverse the spells on them, and putting the paper in the back pocket of his jeans and loosely wrapping the chain around his hand, he threw his cloak to the bed and turned to head back down the hall.

"So… When I said that I wanted to show you one of my favourite places, it wasn't entirely the truth," he said slowly as he came to stand in front of Lucy again at the counter. He smiled softly at the confused expression on her face before he lifted one of her hands to gently lower the necklace into her open palm.

"I… Is this… Aquarius' key?" she whispered. Lucy's eyes went wide when she saw the key charm on it and she lifted it up to look at it closely. She instantly recognised the shape of the key, and the small symbol etched into the stone in the bow, even though the key itself was a whole lot smaller than it had been the last time she'd seen it.

Bickslow nodded. "I know you took it with you everywhere you went, and I know that it was still a little painful for you to do that, because it just reminded you of her."

"B-But it wasn't like I could just forget about it… Or her…" She looked down to her lap and blinked back her tears when her heart ached with the memory of her spirit. It didn't matter that it didn't hurt anywhere near as it much as it once had. It was the fact she still missed Aquarius and always would that had her unable to completely let go of Aquarius.

There was always going to a small part of her that would hurt because she could no longer see Aquarius, and no amount of time would change that. It still got easier with each day, but even so, she still could never and would never be able to let go of what had truly become just a broken key. It didn't matter that it really was just a reminder.

Still, though, she'd trusted Bickslow with that broken key. She'd trusted him with a piece of her heart, just like she'd trusted him with the entirety of it. And so far, she wasn't regretting that again.

Bickslow's fingers lightly touched her chin to tilt her head up again, and the sorrow that was hidden in those orbs had his own heart pulling apart at the seams. "I know that, and I knew that letting go of it completely would be the last thing that would help, which is why I thought having it as something like this would be easier. At least like this, you'd constantly have her by your heart," he said softly.

"Bicks…you're amazing." she whispered, lifting her arms to wrap them around his shoulders. It almost amazed her how thoughtful it actually was, but it didn't surprise her in the least. Not when it was Bickslow. "But… But how did you do this?" Lucy sat back up as she dropped her hands back to her lap to stare at the key. Her finger lightly traced over where she had once broken it in two, and she could barely make out the faintest of join marks in the shining metal. "I-I mean… It was broken…"

"Well, that's why I wanted you to come to Akane Beach with me," Bickslow smiled, only lightly prying the chain from her small hands before he leant to the side to empty the sink just next to her with one hand, before reaching for the tap to begin filling it with cold water. "There's this guy there. Well, he's my uncle, actually."

"Your uncle?"

He nodded with a small smirk at her confused expression, and it was one he didn't blame her for having. Especially since it was the first time he'd brought up even having an uncle, let alone willingly talking about his family. And it was the first time he'd brought it up with anyone, really. He was anxious as hell, too, but he was doing his best to put it aside. "My uncle," Bickslow repeated. "He has this shop in the casino; a jewellery store. He makes these like, crazy pieces, but they're amazing and he really is good at what he does, even though he can be a little eccentric at times."

"A little like you then," she laughed.

"A little, yeah," Bickslow chuckled. "But anyway, it was why I wanted to go there and why I asked if you'd be okay if I did something with Aquarius' key. I knew Cas would be able to do something with it. I didn't really know what, though. Kinda let him do what he wanted to as long as he didn't break it any more than it already was, since that's just what he does best." He paused to turn the faucet off before he slowly lifted the necklace again and let it hover just above the full sink that Lucy was looking at cautiously. "So, I guess he did a bit of research into what the key was supposed to look like so he could recreate the rest of it, which surprised me, honestly."

"It's nice though. I mean, you can barely see where I broke it…" Lucy mumbled as she turned her eyes down to the sink. "But… What's with the water? And how did he get it so small in the first place?" Her brow became furrowed as she tried to figure it out on her own.

The corner of his lips pulled up into a smirk. "So he tends to… enchant things. He's not a mage, and he doesn't really use magic per se, but he does use spells," he explained.

"Spells?"

"Spells," Bickslow repeated. "So, from what I got told, after he rebuilt the rest of it, he shrunk the entire thing using some sort of spell. As for the water… Well," He paused to slowly lower it into the sink, the chain loosely wrapped around his fingers so only the key and half of the chain was submerged. "That's another spell."

Lucy's eyes widened marginally as she let out a quiet gasp at the way key began to softly glow a shade of sapphire in the translucent water. "It… It glows?" she whispered, her eyes trained on what she hadn't expected to be so beautiful.

"It does." Bickslow quickly pulled it from the water before he placed it on a tea towel and reached into his back pocket to pull out the two folded up pieces of paper, and held them out to Lucy when she looked forward again. "Um, but both spells can be reversed, so I mean, if you don't like it, you can just read…"

He trailed off when Lucy quickly took the small pieces of paper and tossed them into the sink, quickly smudging and making the ink on the pages run as they slowly floated down to the bottom.

"I don't need those," Lucy said simply before she took the necklace from where it sat on the towel before quickly undoing the clasp and then doing it up behind her neck. She smiled as it fell flat against her chest, just above the low neckline of her shirt, before looking back up to wind her arms around Bickslow's neck. "Because I love it. It's beautiful."

Bickslow grinned as he felt the relief course through him. He really was glad that she liked it, just because it was something that meant a lot to her and he never would have wanted to ruin it or make things worse for herself. Bickslow had wanted to make things easier for her, and he hoped that he had done just that.

"I'm glad you like it," he murmured as he came to rest his forehead against hers. "But it's not as beautiful as you."

"Have you always been this sweet?"

Bickslow shrugged as he frowned, his eyes flicking down. "Maybe. There's parts of me that haven't seen the light of day in… years. And you know that," he mumbled. "And I'm uh… I'm still trying to figure everything out. Learning who I really am as I go, I guess, since it's been so long. I suppose I'm still just trying to figure out who I really was under everything since parts of me disappeared…"

"Well, Bicks, I'll love you regardless, and I'll be here with you as you do all that. You know that," Lucy whispered.

"I do know, because you're truly amazing." He smiled softly before pressing a chaste kiss to her lips, and with a hand lightly cupping her cheek, he said, "And it's why I love you as much as I do." And just saying those three little words had his heart thumping in his chest, the same way it did the other times he'd said them to Lucy. It was a strange feeling, that was for sure, but he could only think it was something close to relief and joy, and he was still getting used to it.

* * *

"Are you sure we can't just go back to my place? I mean, I could make dinner… or we could go out somewhere… or just sit up and watch one of those stupid Christmas movies you love so much," Bickslow mumbled.

Lucy laughed as she gently squeezed Bickslow's hand with her own, and pulled them to a stop just outside the front gates at the guild. "We can do all of that later," she said with a smile to ease his anxiety. "But for now, we have to go see our friends. You know the sooner we get this out of the way, the easier it will be. For everyone."

Bickslow knew she was right, too. Going to the guild was going to be a good idea, because when everyone was no doubt wondering just what had happened after he'd all but run out of the guild the day before, it really was something they needed to get out of the way. Especially when they really needed to explain the entire thing where they're now together, in a dating and not 'just friends' capacity, considering the entire guild (or at least most of it) had heard the part where he'd broken her heart. Which as it turns out was something Bickslow didn't quite understand when Lucy said that he actually hadn't.

Even Bickslow knew that none of it really made any sense. But then again, he was also convinced that Lucy was absolutely insane for still loving him, or loving him at all really, considering he'd hurt her. More than he still thought he originally had, of course. But still, they would need to explain that insanity, because if Bickslow wasn't involved in it all, he'd be wanting to know just what the hell was going on too.

Lucy's smile alone had him caving though; as much as he really did just want to curl up on his bed – with or without clothes. He wasn't fussed – and watch one of those stupid Christmas movies she loved so much, he knew the guild came first. But like she said, they could do that later.

First though they had to deal with their friends and Bickslow had to avoid being beaten with a paper fan. Though, he wasn't sure he could avoid that. Not entirely, anyway.

"Fine, fine. You're right," Bickslow sighed.

"I'm always right," Lucy giggled, only standing up on her tip-toes to lightly press a kiss to his cheek, just below the bottom of his visor. "Now, let's hurry up and get this over with, just so we can go back and watch one of those _stupid_ Christmas movies I love."

So leaving the quiet streets just out the front of the guild, Lucy stepped forward with her hand still in Bickslow's, and towards the closed doors. Lucy knew the guild would be busy, given the day was quickly coming to an end. Most people spent their days and nights in the guild on holidays, so the more people they could tell at once the better.

Except when they did finally open the doors, they didn't expect the entire guild to fall into complete silence, Bickslow and Lucy could only stand there and let the doors slowly swing shut behind them. It was so quiet Lucy was sure she could hear the crickets chirping from the other side of town, and the way everyone was staring at them, wide-eyed, she really was beginning to wonder if it was the best idea to go to the guild that night.

Suddenly, sitting up in bed – with or without clothes. She really wasn't _that_ worried – and watching (or not watching) terrible Christmas movies and gorging herself on the cookies she'd convinced Bickslow to help her with earlier in the afternoon seemed like a better idea than showing up at the guild.

It was Christmas after all, and it was supposed to be spent with people she loved. But as much as she loved Bickslow, in a different capacity to the guild because they were her friends and family, and as much as she really did just want to walk back out the doors again and drag Bickslow with her – because if she wanted to, then there was no doubt that he wanted to do the same thing – she knew she couldn't do that.

They had to get it over and done with, no matter how uncomfortable it suddenly was, and in that moment, Lucy was glad she had Bickslow there holding her hand, and not the other way around.

"So… I wasn't exactly expecting this to happen…" Bickslow mumbled as his eyes slowly roved over the guild.

"Yeah, neither was I, to be honest," Lucy agreed before she turned to look up with another reassuring squeeze of her hand. "But we should probably move, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah… That might be best. Let's um…let's go to the bar. I think I need something to drink." And that he did. Anything to make the rest of the night less painful than what he now expected it to be.

So silently, they made their way through the deathly and uncomfortably silent guild, and they did their best to not question why some people looked completely shocked, while others had knowing smirks on their lips.

Bickslow was the first to take a seat on one of the free stools, next to Cana on one side with Elfman and Lisanna, as well as Evergreen on the other. The Fairy mage was the first one to do anything other than smirk in silence, much like Mira, and it was only after Lucy let out a quiet yelp of surprise as Bickslow pulled her into his lap, instead of letting her sit on the free stool next to him.

"So…" Evergreen drawled as she looked to the two who kept glancing around at the guild that was only slowly going back to normal. "Anyone want to explain just what happened yesterday?"

Bickslow wrapped his arms around Lucy's waist just a little bit tighter when he saw the rest of her team – along with the rest of his team, and then their closest mutual friends, who just happened to be Gajeel and Levy – watch them carefully.

He shrugged as he turned his head back to Evergreen. "There's not really that much to explain," he mumbled. _Oh, you know… There's the entire thing where I had to go explain why I was such a distant jerk for so long, and then there's the part where I told her I was in love with her. Then it turns out she still loves me for whatever reason. Totally thankful for it, because she's amazing and all, but yeah, not much to explain at all._ Bickslow only mentally rolled his eyes at the rabid thoughts.

Evergreen rolled her own eyes before she gestured to the two of them. "So maybe explain _this_."

"Well, this…" Lucy said as her lips pulled up into a soft smile, blushing as Bickslow sipped at his drink when Mira placed it down on the bar. "This is us no longer being _just friends_ , I guess."

"I fucking called it!" Cana whooped as she suddenly shot up from her chair, a mug in one hand before turning to face the guild. "Pay up, bitches!"

Bickslow turned to face the resident Card mage as a few groans were heard around the room, and his brow was furrowed in disbelief. "Hold on, you bet on us? How did you even know it would be like this?" he asked.

Mira shrugged as Lucy turned to look to her with her own shock, though a smile instead on her lips. "It made sense for you two to finally end up together," Mira said as Evergreen nodded her own smirk back. "Considering the way you ran out after Ever told you about Lucy."

"It was pretty damn obvious that you loved her as well. Or at least _liked_ her," Evergreen agreed.

"So really, it was safe to assume that you two would totally end up actually being together," Cana added. "Especially since Lucy here was so totally head-over-heels for you, and far too forgiving."

Lucy smiled softly before she leant back against Bickslow, tilting her head back to press a light kiss to the side of Bickslow's jaw, only for Mira to squeal in delight, and already no doubt thinking about blue-haired and brown-eyed or blonde-haired and red-eyed babies.

"Looks like you were right about no one else really believing the entire 'we're just friends' thing," Lucy giggled, getting a grin from Bickslow before she trained her eyes on the rest of the guild. "But just out of curiosity… Who _didn't_ lose this bet you were all supposedly in on?" she asked.

Bickslow chuckled as almost everyone's hands shot up in the air, their team's included, along with Levy and Gajeel who only high-fived Laxus. He'd be lying if he said it wasn't a little entertaining, but it was also relieving to see Lucy's team smiling. He had only been just a little worried Team Natsu – Erza specifically – but he wasn't worried about that anymore.

No, he was actually happy in that moment. He had Lucy, which he was still kind of trying to wrap his head around, and he had the guild. Who, for the most part, seemed happy that their resident Seith and Celestial Spirit mages were together. And whether it was just because they'd been waiting for it to happen for the last several weeks or not, Bickslow didn't really care. For the moment, no one was questioning how it had happened, and they just looked happy for their friends.

And for Bickslow, that was everything. He knew he needed to put a lot of things behind him and focus on just being who he actually was with Lucy, and he knew it would take some time, but that was okay. Everything would be fine and everything would work out, because he had Lucy and he had the guild, and to Bickslow that was home, and home was where he would be truly happy again.

With Lucy, he would get that.

* * *

 **I wanted to wait a few days to get this up, but it was finished, and I caved. So it's going up now.**

 **Kind of went back and forth with this one in terms of where Bickslow was at, but... Eh, it kinda works. I think. It gets a little happier from now on, so if you were annoyed at me for making them completely ignorant of each other, then I hope you have a reason to like me again. Heheh.**

 **Like I said before, I'll do my best to get chapters out quickly, but I'm working on three other stories at the moment, so I'm trying to divide my time between at least two of them at a time.**

 **Chapter 9 of this will be the beginning of Doctor, and also like I said before, I've got them all planned out at this point and it's just a matter of writing them. That being said, there's still a lot of room to have some more fun, so, who knows? If you mention something that I hadn't quite thought about, it could just happen in a future chapter.**

 **With that, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.** **Anyway! Please remember to review if you can!**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**


	11. (IV) Doctor in Shining Armour

**Yeah... It's probably best you don't question the insanity that this is too much. I'm not even entirely sure what was going through my head when I thought this up. Seriously.**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 9: DOCTOR**_  
 _ **DOCTOR IN SHINING ARMOUR**_

* * *

Lucy muttered curses towards her team under her breath as she slid down in the uncomfortable vinyl chair, crossing an only slightly scratched leg over her knee. "I really shouldn't be here," she mumbled, glaring at Erza who sat in the row of chairs opposite her with a clipboard in her lap.

"Yes, you should," the Requip mage insisted, only briefly glancing up as she shifted with a slight grimace. "It's bad enough you lost consciousness more than once on the way back here."

"It was only once on the train… And I'm sure it was just because I was tired…" Okay, so maybe it really hadn't been because she was tired. Sure, her losing consciousness probably had something to do with the fact that she'd been knocked out – apparently, since Lucy didn't remember it – on the job they'd taken that day. She'd had a pounding headache for the entire time she'd actually been conscious, but she didn't think it was absolutely necessary to be sitting in the emergency department of Magnolia's hospital.

Not entirely necessary, anyway.

Erza and the rest of the team strongly disagreed though. Erza specifically, really. Natsu and Gray really didn't care all that much, as usual, and Natsu had run off anyway. Erza and Gray didn't even know where he'd gone, but they assumed he'd just gone back to the guild or his house while everyone else got dragged off to the hospital to get their injuries treated.

"It was twice, actually," Erza corrected, watching Lucy fidget with her own clipboard that was balanced on her lap. "And besides, Wendy is out until tomorrow at the earliest, so it _is_ necessary to be here. I'm sure you'd rather get your wrist sorted out at least a little before she gets back, just so you're not in pain."

Lucy rolled her eyes. _Once, twice… Same thing… Not that I really remember it._ "I can live with the pain until then. I've probably had worse."

"Luce, you broke it. You're gonna be up all night in pain if you don't at least get it wrapped properly," Gray cut in as he sat down next to Erza with a huff.

Yeah, technically she did break her wrist at some point that day, and it really did hurt like a bitch as she rested it on top of the clipboard with her admittance forms she needed to fill out, but she really did think she'd had worse. Still, even though she was stubborn and sure she really would live with the pain for a few days until Wendy got back and she could heal the fractured bones, she also knew there was no chance she was going to be leaving. At least not until Erza had finished her own paperwork to even be admitted.

 _Maybe I could sneak off once she got called…_ That could always work. She could just go home… Avoid Bickslow for the next few days until Wendy got back so he didn't have to worry about her or send her back to the hospital…

As much as she loved the guy, and she'd loved the last few weeks with him and she'd enjoyed getting as close as she possibly could to him, she didn't want him at the hospital with her. She knew Bickslow would just worry and freak out. Even though she loved that feeling of having someone in her life who cared about her immensely, Bickslow was the type of person who would do everything to make sure she was comfortable and wasn't in any pain. Hell, if he knew she'd broken her wrist, he would probably confine her to a bed until Wendy was back and she could heal it.

So she muttered some more curses towards her team and the idiot who had gotten her wrist broken in the first place by forcefully shoving her out of the way of a boulder that really had been nowhere near hitting her. Lucy slid down the uncomfortable chair again, keeping the clipboard balanced on her legs and her injured wrist delicately on top of it with but a simple bandage around it to stop most of the swelling. "Fine, I'll stay" she grumbled. "But if any of you call Bicksl—"

"No need to call me if I'm already here."

She couldn't help but groan when she heard the familiar voice from behind her over the sound of everyone else in the emergency room and waiting to be tended to – the Friday night morons, as she had dubbed them – before the man in question quickly walked in front of her to sit down on the chair next to her.

"You're not supposed to be here," Lucy said as her mouth twisted into a tight line and her eyes narrowed at the suddenly suspicious and guilty looking mages opposite her.

"Yes, I am," Bickslow disagreed, only to lightly press a kiss to her cheek before making himself as comfortable as he possibly could on the vinyl chair between his girlfriend and a teenager nursing what appeared to be a serious hangover, despite it being late in the evening.

"No, you're not. Because I'm fine," she sighed, her eyes following Erza as she stood up to go and take her paperwork over the triage nurse. "And how did you even know I was here?" She knew one of her idiotic friends must have let him know they were heading to the hospital instead of the guild, but she didn't know which one. Though, when she did find out which one had called her occasionally over-protective boyfriend… Well, she might just have to kick them through a wall, and here's to hoping it was Natsu who had done it.

He shrugged then. "Master told me just after he talked to Erza, and then I asked Natsu if you were actually here when he came in." He looked down to her wrist and the blank hospital forms she had it resting on, and then back to Erza when she sat back down next to Gray, only letting a tiny bit of pain show on her face. "What even happened anyway?" he asked, his brow suddenly furrowing in concern for the blonde and her teammates.

"Natsu not following the plan is what happened," Gray scoffed.

"So the usual, I take it?"

Lucy sighed. "Something like that." And really, Lucy could technically blame her possible concussion and broken wrist on her best friend. If he'd just followed their plan of attack – for once – she wouldn't have been thrown around like a ragdoll. From what she'd heard from Erza and Gray, the only reason she'd lost consciousness at all the first time was because Natsu had thrown her just a little too hard to get her out of the way of something else that had apparently been flying in her direction. So not only had her best friend caused her a head injury, but he'd also indirectly broken her wrist.

To say that Lucy's day and job had gone horribly was an understatement, but she always expected something to go wrong with whatever job she took with Natsu.

"Erza Scarlet?"

Lucy lifted her head when a nurse called for Erza from the end of the room, and the Requip mage that was covered in her own bandages and bruises slowly got up from the chair. "I guess I'll see you guys later," she said as she limped over to the nurse who had called her.

Once Erza had disappeared through the double doors that led to the rest of the hospital, Gray pushed himself up from the chair and rubbed at the back of his head. "Well, since Bickslow is here and all, I suppose I'll just go let Juvia fuss over me or something," he mumbled.

"Oh, okay…" Lucy muttered, her own brow furrowing in confusion. _Why the hell did you even come if you didn't need to be here?!_ Hell, she didn't even understand why Erza had been there. As usual, Lucy was the only one who had actually gotten hurt more than usual, but apparently the Requip mage had decided that she, too, needed medical attention from someone other than Wendy.

So once Gray had disappeared too, only instead leaving through the glass doors at the front of the emergency department waiting room, Lucy looked back up to Bickslow. "You're not going to let me leave, are you?"

"Not a chance."

She sighed at the smug smirk on his lips before she gently lifted her arm to pull the clipboard out from under it with her free hand, and she handed it to Bickslow. "You might as well make yourself useful then. I kind of broke my wrist so I can't actually fill in any of the admittance papers," she mumbled.

"Damn, Cosplayer," Bickslow chuckled with a light shake of his head as he pulled the pen from the clip at the top. "You're gone for less than a day and you end up in hospital with a broken wrist. What else happened?"

"… I probably have a concussion too…"

Bickslow could only sigh then. "And you wonder why I worry." And he did. He worried a lot, because he knew that she tended to get hurt a lot on whatever job she took. He'd known that for a while though, because it was hard not to notice the blonde walk into the guild after almost every single job with at least a few bandages or bruises.

The only difference now was that they were actually dating, and he wasn't just some guy in the guild who noticed things like that – like everyone did, really. He hated seeing her hurt, but he reasoned that he was really going to have to find a way to get used to it if he wanted to continue seeing Lucy. Which he really did, of course, because the last few weeks had seriously been absolutely amazing.

He'd had to adjust to a few things – like he still was, really – and he'd had to learn a few things about who he really was beneath everything, but Bickslow didn't mind having to do any of that. He could deal with the sudden influx of guys he didn't even know hating him, and he could sure as hell deal with having someone in his life that actually cared about him and loved him. He could deal with how frightening and new it was to try and learn who he was – who he could be and wanted to be around Lucy – because it was easy to do so with Lucy helping him, reminding him that she would still be there with him.

With Lucy, all Bickslow had to do was remember to keep his walls down, and the rest really did come relatively easy. He was comfortable around her, and it was all because he wasn't afraid of just doing what felt natural. He'd had to stop caring about acting a certain way to reach that point where he was actually comfortable and unafraid, and it had been harder to do that than Bickslow would ever care to admit to anyone other than Lucy. But it was okay. He could put that behind him because he knew Lucy loved him for who he really was, even though Bickslow was still trying to figure that out himself. If he didn't care about the way he acted, and if he just did whatever felt right, then things were easy and he could just be himself.

Things weren't really as different as expected though. It had been so long since Bickslow had actually let someone in that he really had forgotten who he really was under everything. It was why he was having to try and figure out who he was. As it turns out though, having spent so long convincing everyone that he was someone else entirely, there were parts of of him that had stopped being just a façade. So sure, he was still the raging pervert – like every single guy in the guild if he were to be honest, but it was really just for Lucy now. He was still a little eccentric, but he wasn't the over-confident and outgoing person that everyone else saw. Lucy knew he was surprisingly shy considering the way he'd always acted, and she damn well knew that he didn't trust or particularly like that many people.

But all of that was okay. Bickslow was fine with being someone between the person that the guild saw, and the person that he knew he'd once been and had been hidden behind everything. He was learning than he was the most comfortable like that. Even if things were almost completely different with Lucy, just because he wasn't anywhere near as timid around her as he'd been just a couple of weeks earlier. He trusted Lucy with everything, because she was the one person who – for whatever reason – loved him unconditionally, and that just meant she really happened to love every side of him… Including the odd raging perv side. But that was also okay. That was all for Lucy.

Still, though, Lucy was one of the few people – aside from his team – that knew he had the capability to care a lot about someone or something. Of course, Lucy knew that that certain someone just happened to be her, and Bickslow really did care about her a lot. More than he could probably put into words, anyway. But he would always worry about her health, too, and even though he was still trying to figure out the entire 'boyfriend' thing, Bickslow was sure that he wouldn't be a very good one if he wasn't there for his girlfriend when she was in hospital. If that just meant he was there to fill out the paperwork she couldn't, well… He'd do it. Gladly. Despite how much he hated paperwork.

"Don't the nurses usually fill this stuff out when you get here?" Bickslow mumbled as he started to fill in the form, starting with her name at the very top before writing his own in the next box, since Lucy couldn't fill it out herself. _Relationship to individual if completed by someone else… Hmm… Partner? Yeah. Partner works._ "And why are there so many damn pages anyway?"

Lucy sighed quietly. "I don't know. I thought the same thing when they handed me the forms to fill out, but I didn't really want to question it. I guess they just want to be thorough to make sure they don't do something to cause more harm or whatever." She lowered her head slightly to rest on Bickslow's shoulder and watched him neatly write out her address, and then the few irrelevant allergies he knew she had.

"Reason for visit to emergency department… I can't put 'idiotic team mates', can I?"

She let out a light chuckle then. "No, you can't. Just put a broken wrist. I can deal with the concussion. They won't be able to do anything for it anyway." And Lucy would know. She'd had more concussions that she cared to admit thanks to her team. It was almost a miracle she didn't have any lasting damage. But then again, Wendy was a saint.

Bickslow turned to the second page of the form and he groaned slightly upon seeing the first half of the page being a checklist about her status, and he quickly went through and ticked all of the ones he needed to since none were relevant to her. "Seriously… Half of these are a waste of time."

"Like I said, I guess they just want to be thorough."

"Yeah, well… They're pretty much getting your life story at this point," he scoffed. His eyes slowly went down the page to the next part of the form when he finished with the checklists, and he turned his head to look down at the blonde resting on his shoulder. "Had any surgeries?" he asked.

Lucy shook her head from where she was. "Nope."

"Medical problems?"

"No."

"What about… Psychiatric problems?"

She sighed. "Bicks, come on. You know I don't have any."

Bickslow crossed the boxes as he went with a slight smirk. "Well, I mean… You're dating me… That kind of makes you a little insane." Not that he was complaining, of course. Sure, he was still wrapping his head around it, because for some reason Lucy loved him. _Him_ , of all people. It was great, but seriously, she had to be at least a little insane. "Alright… Next box… I think this is the last one to be filled out though." _Oh, great. Women's health. Didn't think I'd be asking her any of these questions, but oh well._

"Good. My wrist is really starting to hurt now, to be honest." And it was. A lot. Her head she could deal with because it was just like a worse than usual headache.

"Well, I'm sure if you'd just asked Gray or one of the nurses to fill it out, they would have understood that you physically can't."

Lucy shrugged as she lifted her head from his shoulder when Bickslow turned the page back. "Didn't want to."

"I gathered that," he sighed when his focus returned to the questions on the page. "Anyway. Currently pregnant?" Bickslow asked, the corner of his lips pulling up into a smirk when he slowly lowered the pen to tick the 'no' box.

Except… Lucy didn't say anything, and he instantly lost the smirk and was no longer finding it just a little humorous that he was asking his girlfriend if she was pregnant. When Bickslow looked up and to the side to face the blonde, he found her making a point of looking away, though he could see the way her cheeks were flushed.

 _No… No way. There was no way she could be… Right?_ "Lucy…" he said softly. It was just to get her to turn and look at him and actually talk to him, because hell, Bickslow was sure that they needed to have a conversation about a certain something then.

Lucy didn't really want to talk though, not when she was internally cursing herself for not reading what was actually on the damn forms in the first place. Sure, the possibility of her being pregnant might have crossed her mind at least once in the last couple of days, but she didn't really want to believe it. At least not until she knew whether she was or not, and she was waiting to actually do that.

Technically, she was only a few days late, so really, it was entirely possible she wasn't because it could really just be something else entirely. Besides, it happened occasionally anyway. The only difference was that Lucy had never really worried about it in the past, because she'd never had a reason to suspect that it could ever be a baby. But… Now that she was with Bickslow… Well, now she was very, _very_ worried about the possibility of actually being pregnant.

But she had still wanted to at least wait a few more days before she took a test to find out, just to give herself a bit more time. Then, if she did end up being pregnant… Well, she'd tell Bickslow then, because that would be the right thing to do. She'd had no intentions of telling Bickslow that there was a chance she could be pregnant, not even a month into their relationship. He didn't need to freak out about it until he had to reason to, at which point, Lucy would be joining him in freaking out.

Of course, that plan had already completely failed, and Lucy knew that Bickslow was already freaking out. Internally, at least.

"Lucy… You're not… Are you?" Bickslow said quietly again as he held the pen steady in his left hand, the tip still hovering over the 'no' box. He didn't want to believe that she actually could be pregnant, because his brain couldn't even begin to comprehend what would happen if she was.

Did he want a baby? Hell fucking no, if he were to be completely honest. At least not then, anyway. Definitely not then. But did Lucy want a baby? Well, Bickslow had no idea. He assumed she would one day, because she seemed like the kind of person who want the entire marriage and kids thing at some point. They sure as hell hadn't talked about what they wanted in life though, because you just didn't talk about those kinds of things not even a month into a relationship.

Then again, you also didn't get knocked up not even a month into a relationship. Not intentionally, anyway. Something like that was sure to put a strain on a relationship though, especially when it was about a baby that neither wanted. At least, Bickslow didn't think Lucy wanted a baby. Not right then, anyway. _Shit… We're gonna need to talk about that later… Especially if she is…_

"I… I don't know…" Lucy finally whispered as she looked down to her lap again.

"You don't know…?"

She shrugged as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "I mean, I might be… Or I might not be…" Her stomach was tying itself in knots as her hand began to tremble, and she had to refrain from wringing her hands together. The fear that she really might be pregnant was suddenly setting in, and she couldn't handle that then. She'd told herself that she wasn't going to worry about it – hell, even think about it – until she was sure that she was. Or wasn't. She was hoping for the latter though. "I haven't, you know… Found out. I just wanted to wait a little while…" Lucy paused to clear her throat when she felt her cheeks heat up just that tiny bit more as she glanced to the side and up to Bickslow. Even with the visor, she was sure he was looking at her in complete shock. "And besides… It's not like there hasn't been plenty of opportunities for it to happen, because there has been. Like… A lot…"

"Nice, man. Up top."

Bickslow suddenly turned to face the teenager sitting on his other side to see him nodding with a wide grin plastered on his face and a hand raised in the air. _Does this guy seriously want me to high-five him? Over sleeping with my own girlfriend? A lot? Really?_ "Dude, no. Fuck off," he muttered, only turning back to Lucy when the teenager's face dropped completely and he went back to moping and waiting to be called. "Anyway… As much as I want to talk about this, because we really need to, I don't think this is the place to do so. Especially if you want to complain about the sex."

"I-I'm not… I'm just…" Nope. She was definitely not complaining about about the sex. Quality or quantity. She was just merely point out that there had been plenty of opportunities for Bickslow to get her knocked up. "Making a point. That's all," she finally said quietly as she ducked her head slightly.

"Well, we'll still talk about this later, okay?" he said softly, quickly reaching over for her uninjured hand to lace their fingers together on the armrest. Just that small bit of contact that would hopefully reassure Lucy that they were still together, and he was there for her. "But since there's no 'maybe' box, what do you want to do?" Bickslow asked quietly as he spun the pen around in his left hand.

She sighed as she dropped her head to his shoulder again and she looked down to the form. Technically, she could find out while she was there at the hospital, but she didn't want to know. She wanted to give herself the benefit of the doubt almost; give herself – her body, technically – a few more days. And then, she would have to find out for sure.

Until then, though, she wasn't going to deal with it. "Just put 'no'," she sighed.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Lucy insisted. "Just… give me until the end of the week. I'll take a test then if I don't…" She paused to lightly shake her head as she closed her eyes, and she sighed quietly. "Look, I'll deal with it in a few days. I just want to get my wrist sorted out first, okay?"

Just a few more days… She could survive that long without freaking out too much, right?

* * *

Lucy struggled to keep her eyes open as she stared at the coffee table just in front of her in the dim room. They'd only left the hospital an hour earlier, and Lucy was completely out of it. The medication they'd given her for the pain was apparently designed to knock her out, and boy, was it working.

All plans of having a conversation about the possibility of her being pregnant had been thrown out the window as soon as she'd collapsed on Bickslow's lounge. Lucy hadn't really wanted to spend the night there, just because it really sucked that Bickslow now knew about her little problem. She hadn't wanted him to know because she knew he would just worry and freak out. And sure, he really did have a good reason to do that even though they didn't know if she actually was pregnant or not, because a baby was a huge and terrifying prospect, especially that early into a relationship.

But Lucy still wasn't thinking about it too much. And neither was Bickslow. Well, he was trying not to, and he was really trying his hardest not to freak out. Nothing was for certain; it was just a possibility. So when he'd basically had to drag her to the bathroom to help get her cleaned up since she couldn't really stand on her own at that point (courtesy of the pain meds she was on), he hadn't been able to stop himself from staring at her perfectly flat and toned stomach. And of course, she'd called him out on it before she was completely out of it and on the verge of crashing. But Bickslow just hadn't been able to help himself, because the thought that she really could be pregnant right then was in the forefront of his mind.

He really did try his best to push it back. He knew he couldn't think about it too much either because she knew he would really begin to panic about him being an actual father. Of course, it didn't help that he really didn't want to be either. At least not yet. Bickslow wasn't going to tell Lucy any of that though, not even when she actually did end up being pregnant when she did eventually find out. Because even if that was what ended up happening, it would still be his kid – regardless of whether or not he wanted it – and he would still love Lucy.

Besides, if she was pregnant, he figured he'd still have another nine months to prepare himself – or themselves, technically – for what would be their actual child. Plenty of time to freak out. The new few days, however, were a time where Bickslow couldn't freak out. Of course, all he wanted was to know whether or not they were actually having a baby, but Lucy didn't want to know yet, so he wasn't going to force the issue. Especially when they weren't talking about it because she was completely out of it.

So as Bickslow finished up the dishes, he glanced over to the blonde who was lying on his lounge and he really couldn't tell if she was actually asleep or still barely awake. Ever since they'd got back to his apartment, she really had been strangely quiet, and Bickslow knew it wasn't just because of the pain meds she was on. He knew she didn't really want to be there – oh, she'd made that quite clear on the way back – but he also still wanted to make sure she was okay and wasn't going to unintentionally hurt herself in her not quite completely functional state. After all, she was still his girlfriend and he cared about her a lot. He was merely looking out for her.

He walked over to the lounge then and extended a hand for her to take. "Come on, you need to go to bed before you fall asleep on the lounge," he said softly. Sure, he could just wait for her to fall asleep – which he figured would literally be any minute now – and just carry her to bed then, but he also figured actually having her fall asleep in a bed would be a better idea.

"But I'm comfortable," Lucy slurred as she looked up through tired eyes. "I don't wanna move."

"You can't stay here," Bickslow frowned. "How about I carry you then?"

She nodded as best she could with her head on the pillow. "You should do that," she mumbled. It didn't entirely help that Lucy was sure she wouldn't have been able to move if she tried. It was like every single muscle in her body had fallen asleep, and her mind was soon going to be joining them. She sighed quietly when Bickslow gently lifted her from the lounge and into his arms, and she slowly lowered her head to rest on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "You're too good to me sometimes," she slurred again.

"Not really."

"Uh-huh," she hummed. "You pick me up when I'm down on the ground." _Hey, that's a good one._ She giggled as Bickslow gently lowered her to the bed as he shook his head at her with a smirk. "And… And you're there for me—"

"Because I love you," Bickslow said softly as he crouched down by the side of the bed.

Lucy sighed as she finally let her eyes close, giving up on the struggle of keeping them open. "I know, but I just mean that you were there when no one else was, and you made me laugh and you put me back together when I was broken," she whispered tiredly. She'd said it all a million times and she knew that Bickslow knew just how thankful she was for all of it, but Lucy would never stop telling him that. Well, maybe she would one day, but it wasn't going to be that day. A quiet giggle slipped out again, much to Bickslow's confusion, before she quietly said, "You're kind of like a doctor, you know?"

"Okay… Please explain that one."

She slowly opened her eyes again to see Bickslow looking to her with a smirk and an eyebrow raised. "'Cause you fixed me," she giggled. "You mended my soul and doctors fix people." And maybe it was because she really wasn't thinking straight because of the pain meds that she was fighting to stay awake just that little bit longer, and she'd just been to the hospital after all, but in that moment, Lucy really did think that it made sense.

Bickslow had been the one to piece her back together and put her back on her feet. He had fixed her broken soul and he'd made her all better. That's what doctors were to Lucy; they were healers and Bickslow had healed her.

He could only shake his head at her as he chuckled. First she'd called him her knight in shining armour, and now she was calling him a doctor. It was times like these that Bickslow really questioned her sanity as much as he questioned his own. But every time Lucy did remind him of all that he'd done without even being aware of it, it warmed his heart. All Bickslow had wanted was to see Lucy happy and smile again, and right then, when she was completely out of it, she was doing just that, and it was because of him. He had been the one to get her to that point and he loved that.

"Well, consider me your doctor-slash-knight for as long as you want me to be," he said softly.

"Doctor in shining armour?"

He sighed at the strange mental image before he leant forward to lightly press a kiss to her cheek. "Yeah, I suppose. I'm your doctor in shining armour." Hell, he'd be anything for Lucy, and granted, a doctor in shining armour wasn't really that bad. It was strange, but it wasn't terrible. But then again, Bickslow was a strange person, so he could live with it as long as she didn't make him actually dress up as one.

* * *

"I think it should be all good now," Wendy said with a tired smile on her lips as she sat back on her heels.

Lucy experimentally flexed her wrist, and when she could do so well enough with just a small ache in the centre, a wide grin split her face. "Ah, Wendy! You're brilliant!" she gushed as she quickly leant forward from where she sat on her lounge and wrapped her arms around the young Dragon Slayer. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"It's alright…" Wendy laughed nervously. She was used to people being extraordinarily thankful because of her magic, but Lucy was almost on a new level, and she didn't quite understand it.

Even though Lucy had only had to wait another two days for Wendy to get back, those two days had been agonisingly long for Lucy. It had sucked not being able to move her wrist or do anything with it – especially so since she couldn't even write – but that wasn't even really the worst part about those two days. No, those two days had been painful because the end of the week was quickly approaching and she was having a hard time keeping herself calm.

Curse her body for being so goddamn unreliable right then, and curse Bickslow for possibly getting her knocked up! _Wait, damn it. You know you can't put all of this on Bickslow._ If she was pregnant, then it would really be both of their faults, because you know, it takes more than one to make a baby.

Of course, the fact that she was getting more and more anxious the closer it got to the weekend probably had a lot to do with the fact that she'd been avoiding and ignoring Bickslow since she'd left the hospital and stayed at Bickslow's for the night. Which, really, wasn't all that unusual. She'd stayed there more than a few times in the time they'd actually been together – and even a few times before that where she'd either fallen asleep on the lounge and half on Bickslow after watching a movie – and she kept just a few things at his place. As much as she loved him and she liked spending time with him, she didn't want to be around him then. Not when she was on the verge of having a mental breakdown, and when she could barely contain her own emotions, she sure as hell couldn't contain Bickslow's.

It wasn't like she didn't feel bad for avoiding Bickslow though, because she did. Not only had she just been avoiding Bickslow as a whole, but she'd avoided the entire conversation they needed to have. But Lucy didn't think it was really that necessary. There was no reason to talk until they knew if she was actually pregnant. At which point… Yeah, they'd really fucking need to talk. Until then, though, Lucy just didn't know if there was anything to talk about.

Things were already awkward enough between them as it was, considering Lucy still really hated the fact that Bickslow knew anything at all. Just how was Lucy supposed to actually be around him when there was the obvious elephant in the room? You know, the elephant being herself in the next nine months. Maybe. And the maybe part was really the important part.

But still, she was waiting. Just one more day. One more day and she'd find out because by then, she really wouldn't be able to stop herself from doing so because she would just be that goddamn nervous. And worried. And terrified.

"Thanks again, Wendy," Lucy said as she rubbed at her now mended wrist with her other hand. "You have no idea how great it feels to actually be able to move it again." A nervous laugh escaped as she followed Wendy and Carla to her door.

"I just wish I had been here when you got back so you hadn't had to deal with the pain from it," Wendy sighed.

"Oh, no, it's fine. I've dealt with worse," Lucy laughed again as she pulled her door open for the Dragon Slayer and Exceed. "The hospital gave me some pretty strong pain relief so I was okay." Sure, she'd spent half of the last two days completely out of it – not that that really helped with the worrying at all – but she wasn't going to tell Wendy that.

Wendy sighed again as she nodded sadly, and she tightened her arms around Carla. "If you're sure…" She turned and finally stepped over the threshold and out into the hall just in time to see Bickslow coming up the stairs, and Lucy squeaked in surprised and only smiled sheepishly when Wendy turned back around. "Well, I'll see you later, Lucy." Wendy turned once again to slowly walk past Bickslow and she smiled with a slight nod. "You too, Bickslow."

"Yeah. See ya, Wendy," Bickslow mumbled. He closed the door behind himself as he unclipped his visor, and he gently lowered it to the small table by the door. The slight blush on her cheeks and the almost guilty smile on her lips had Bickslow only frowning in response as he slowly moved towards her, before winding his arms around her waist. "You've been avoiding me," he murmured as his lips brushed against hers.

Yeah, Bickslow knew Lucy was avoiding him. And he'd be lying if he said it didn't hurt. Even though it had only been two days, a more than depressing thought had already wormed its way into his mind, and Bickslow truly hated that. Lucy was different. She loved him for who he was and she wasn't going to leave. Not any time soon, anyway. At least he hoped not, because things were really great. Well, at least they had been. That wasn't to say things still weren't great though, because they were. Things were just a little awkward… Because Lucy was avoiding him.

He knew that it was because she needed and wanted her time, and as much as Bickslow really hated the entire waiting game, he knew he couldn't really do anything about it. If Lucy wanted to wait – thankfully, just one more day – then he could wait too. As stressful as it was. Not that he was going to let Lucy see how stressed he was about the entire thing, because he didn't think that would be fair on her. She was no doubt stressing about it too, because damn it, it was a possible baby, and that was definitely something to stress about.

Just because he hadn't seen her for the last two days, it didn't mean Bickslow didn't know she was worrying. She had to be, whether she showed it right then or not.

"What? Avoiding you?" Lucy laughed nervously as she did her best to smile genuinely, even though her heart was hammering and her stomach was doing flips and leaps and a whole array of acrobatic feats with her anxiety. She wasn't the best when it came to lying. "I haven't been avoiding you. I just… I was just…" _Crap, what the hell was I doing?!_

"Lucy…"

His soft voice and the piercing eyes had Lucy caving, and she sighed heavily before looking down to her hands as she intertwined her fingers between them. "Okay, fine… I was kind of avoiding you," she mumbled, her cheeks becoming even more flushed. "But can you blame me? I know you want to talk about it, but I don't want to. Not until I know."

Bickslow sighed before he pulled her in to his chest again, and he lowered his chin to rest on top of her head. "You should have just told me that then. You didn't have to avoid me," he murmured. If Lucy didn't want to talk, then they didn't have to talk. He just wanted to be there with her and for her, and hell, Bickslow would sit in a room in silence with her if he had to.

Anything just to remind Lucy that they did things together now, and as long as he was her doctor in shining armour, he was going to be there for her. To not talk about the fact that she could be pregnant. And Bickslow was fine with that. Well, kinda. He would have to be okay with not talking, because if not talking was what Lucy wanted to do and that was how she was keeping herself from having a complete mental breakdown, then that was what would happen.

"Don't be mad at me," Lucy whispered. "I'm sorry for avoiding you then."

"It's okay. I get it." And Bickslow did get it. It was his job to get it and be supportive, and that's what he was being.

She sighed as a little bit of relief washed over her and she could no longer feel her stomach doing somersaults with her anxiety. Bickslow got it. Bickslow always got it, because Bickslow understood her. He always had been able to do that, right from the moment he'd shown up at her apartment in the middle of the night. Bickslow had been the one who understood her the most, and he was the one who always knew what she needed. He knew how to make things better and he sure as hell knew just what to say to calm her down when she needed it. Even if she didn't show it, he knew. He always knew, because there wasn't a single thing she could hide from Bickslow. He was her doctor in shining armour, and it was because he was hers that he could do all of that.

But then… Her eyes went wide when she felt that familiar stabbing pain low in her stomach and she lifted her head and pushed back on Bickslow's chest. _Oh god… Now?! Really?!_ Every time. That's how she knew it was coming. Because that's how it always started, and then she'd _feel_ it. "Oh god… Oh my god…" she muttered, her face a shade that rivalled Erza's hair as she quickly pulled free from Bickslow before she turned on her heels and ran for her bathroom.

Bickslow could only blink as the door slammed behind her, and his brows drew together as he tried to figure out just what in the hell was going on. One minute, they're just enjoying holding each other like they always did, and the next, she was rushing off without explaining it.

And as strange as it was, Lucy had to refrain from screaming in joy. For the first time in her life, she was pretty fucking ecstatic about it. And it seemed to come at the near perfect moment too. Sure, right that second that been more than a little inopportune, but that day, at least. That's what counted.

She came running out of her bathroom only a few minutes later, and with a wide grin, she launched herself at the Seith mage who was standing in the same spot he had been when she'd run off in the first place, and he threw his arms around his neck as she began to laugh. Partly because she was just so far past happy in that moment, with every single bit of worry instantly being gone, and partly because the wide-eyed look on Bickslow was far too adorable.

She didn't even care that she'd sent him falling backwards and onto his back on the floor. But Bickslow cared, because it strangely hurt (though he figured it probably had something to do with the fact that he had the blonde on top of him). He'd been far too shocked and confused to even think about steadying himself or calling on his babies to keep him from falling.

"What the hell is going on?!" he demanded quickly as he slowly sat up, rubbing the back of his head with a hand as his brow furrowed once again at the giggling blonde.

"Not pregnant!" Lucy said excitedly as she sat up on her knees between his legs. She didn't care that she was blushing up a storm. Not at all.

Bickslow blinked. "You… Huh?" _What?_ "How do you know? I mean… Are you sure?"

Lucy nodded quickly as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "Yeah, pretty sure," she laughed nervously. Sure, she would probably take a test or something in the next few days just to make sure – you know, so she was like 300% sure – but her entire problem was a pretty good indicator that she wasn't.

"I don't…" Bickslow could only stare at her for a few more moments as he tried to figure out just how Lucy was so sure. But then he realised, and his eyes went wide again and his own cheeks flushed slightly. He didn't really have that much experience with girls – the only woman he'd actually spent time around was Evergreen, and Bickslow didn't think she really counted half the time – and he had literally zero when it came to the entire pregnancy thing. Of the few things he did know, though… Well… "Wait… Did you just... get y—"

"Yeah, kinda."

"… Like, right then?" She nodded. "Wow," he whispered. Bickslow was sure that it was the only time in his life that he would ever be glad about Lucy getting her bloody visitor. Just because it meant they weren't having a baby. Well, at least that month. He still sure as hell hoped it wasn't any time soon if it didn't actually happen. He still wasn't sure how he'd feel about that in the distant future, but he had no intentions of thinking about that either. Not when he was really just hoping to stay with Lucy to see where things went. But still, in that moment, knowing that she wasn't pregnant, Bickslow was pretty fucking happy. "So… We're not having a baby?" he asked quietly.

And if it hadn't been for the smile that was pulling at the corners of his lips and the cheerful gleam in his eyes, Lucy might have thought that he was almost disappointed. But she knew he wasn't, because he was as overjoyed as she was. "We're not having a baby," she laughed again, only quickly leaning forward to wrap her arms around his neck again and send them back towards the floor to laugh and hold each other some more. "But… I mean…" she lifted her head ever so slightly as the heat flared up again, and with an embarrassed smile, she said, "Maybe I should go see a doctor anyway… Just to… You know… Make sure this doesn't happen again…"

* * *

 **Like I said, it really probably is wise not to question it too much. This is just... Yeah, I have no words for this. Truly.**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**


	12. (V) The Butler and the Maid

**Ah, hello again! It's been a while (Chapter 9 was posted on 27th November), and I apologise. That was the last one I had written up at the time and I'd just needed to take the time to write out the next chapters. But, as you know, I'm working on a lot of other stories at the moment, and I do like to try and spend an 'equal' amount of time between them. Of course, there's always going to be ones that I would love to spend all of my time working on and getting them up to the good parts, but I can't.**

 **Anyway. To make up for such a long wait, I hope you enjoy this longer than usual chapter for this story! And yes, I know... It's not exactly Vendetta, but I had nowhere else to put it. I do believe I said the prompts would be loose for the most part. ;)**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 10: VENDETTA**_  
 _ **THE BUTLER AND THE MAID**_

* * *

Bickslow stood with his eyes closed beneath his visor and behind Lucy as she stared up at the request board, his arms around her waist and his chin resting on her head. For weeks, she had been bringing up how they apparently needed to go out on a job together, and for weeks, Bickslow had just been saying that they'd do it soon.

Except things kept getting in the way, and _soon_ was said more and more, and even more weeks passed. First it had been Lucy maybe being pregnant – something that they had both agreed to just put behind them and turn into something they could laugh about later – and then it had been Valentine's Day, Bickslow's team leaving on their own S-Class mission for nearly two weeks, then Lucy's team leaving as soon as they'd got back… Everything just got in the way and they'd quickly found out it was just a little difficult to have a relationship when they both tended to get incredibly busy at times.

But the fact they were having to find a balance between their jobs and their relationship wasn't a hindrance in the slightest. It was all about making adjustments, and they would do that just to be with each other. So they didn't get to spend every minute of every waking day with each other, and at best they only really got to spend maybe one or two nights a week together at Bickslow's apartment, but that was still okay. They didn't particularly like that they weren't able to spend more time together (a _lot_ more time), but they were coping with it and finding ways to spend more time together.

One of those ways was skipping the odd job or mission with their respective teams, and with Laxus and the rest of Bickslow's team having left that same morning for one job just the day after Lucy and her own team had gotten back from another, the two finally had time to be together between their crazy schedules.

So finally having some time together, they decided there was no better time to finally go on their first job together, even if they were both just a little exhausted – Lucy from having next to no sleep at all for the last three nights, and Bickslow from having almost zero sleep the night before. Not that he was complaining though. Oh no. When he hasn't seen his girlfriend in just nearly two weeks, it turns out they had a bit of catching up to do, and when he was back to not worrying or having a single care in the world about getting her knocked up… Yeah, they were gonna be up all night.

The only problem now was that it wasn't even midday and Bickslow was struggling to keep his eyes open. He'd gone one night without sleep and he was the walking dead; Lucy had gone three nights and she was much more energetic than he was. He just didn't know how she did it.

"Bicks?"

"Shh, sleeping," he mumbled. The longer he stood there, the more his body fell asleep, and at that point, not even half of what Lucy had been saying was making it to the part of his brain that actually processed all he heard. He could hear Lucy talking, but what it was she'd been saying, he just had no idea.

He really did want to go on a job with Lucy too, just… Apparently not that afternoon. His team was gone for an entire week, and he didn't think Lucy's team had any plans of taking a job for the next few days at least (though he hoped longer), so was there really any rush on them going on a job? They could go into the guild early the next morning after they'd actually had some sleep and find something to do for the day, and at least if he'd had some sleep, he wouldn't be putting himself, or more importantly Lucy, in danger.

Bickslow's other problem was that he didn't want to ask Lucy to wait just one more day. They'd already put it off for nearly two months, and he felt just a little bad about it because he knew that Lucy really wanted them to go on a job together.

Lucy though, she really didn't mind if they didn't go on a job that afternoon. In fact, she saw the logic in waiting for another day. They'd have more time, they'd actually be awake (or at least Bickslow would be), and they could spend another lazy afternoon and evening in bed. Though, she figured it would be with clothes that day – not that she was complaining about the previous day and night's activities and lack of clothes. Never.

"Bicks…" She pulled his hands away from where they were laced in front of her, and she slowly turned around to look up to the Seith mage who was practically asleep standing upright. "How about you go home and get some sleep?"

"That sounds like a marvellous idea," he mumbled. He was too tired to even nod, but he was just a little convinced that his girlfriend had read his mind. She'd suggested the one thing he wanted more than anything right then. His hand wrapped around one of Lucy's as they slowly headed back towards the guild doors together, and as her head came to rest by his shoulder, he said, "But you're coming with me."

"Of course I am," she giggled. "I found a job for us to do, by the way."

"Did you?"

"Mm-hmm. And I think you'll like it. But… We have to be up at five a.m since we need to be at the café by six."

He sighed as the doors swung closed behind them, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. "A café, huh?" Bickslow had only ever taken one job at a restaurant or café, and it had been for all of two days. Two days had been far too long though, but with Lucy, he'd cope. "A café it is then."

* * *

Bickslow was quickly realising the lengths he would go to too spend time with his girlfriend those days, and he was strangely just a little worried about what he was actually willing to do. He loved her more than anything in the world, that much was undoubtable, and he would probably do absolutely anything to make sure she was happy…

But some things? Some things, Bickslow would never have imagined himself ever doing, and to do such things, he would have to remind himself that it was because he loved Lucy and would do anything for her and to be with her. So when Lucy dragged him to Magnolia's newest _cosplay_ café at a little before six o'clock in the morning, Bickslow was stuck staring up at the small building that was just about ready to open for the day in utter shock and reminding himself that he would do anything to spend some time with Lucy, no matter how much he hated it.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Bickslow mumbled as he glanced back down to his, in that moment, frankly evil as all hell girlfriend. But she was the evil as all hell girlfriend he loved more than anything.

"Nope, sorry," she giggled. "I thought you'd enjoy it."

When she'd seen the flyer for the new cosplay café in town and how the owner was looking for some people to work for there for a day for whatever reason, Lucy had been sure it would be a great way for them to spend their day together while taking a job. The reward didn't really matter, not that Bickslow ever really cared much about one, and it was simple enough and easy enough that they wouldn't even have to leave Magnolia.

"Enjoy it?" Bickslow wasn't sure how he would enjoy it. Lucy was the cosplayer in their relationship, not him. He might enjoy seeing her dress up in whatever uniform they put her in, but he would certainly not enjoy wearing whatever they put _him_ in. "Debatable," he scoffed. He'd just have to remind himself that whatever the day held, it would be worth it to spend it with his darling girlfriend who he rarely got to see.

Lucy giggled as she stepped forward and did her best to drag Bickslow forward with her. "It's okay, Bicks," she said with a smile to the scowling Seith mage she loved dearly. "It's just one day, and did I mention we get to keep the uniforms?"

"… Well, I mean… I'll be burning mine as soon as I get whatever it is off, but yours… you'll definitely be keeping… Right?"

"Of course." She'd been to that type of café before, and she'd seen the type of clothes the staff wore. Most of the ones she'd seen were definitely not ones she would wear willingly, and she was convinced Bickslow would hate whatever he got put in… But she was also convinced he'd just happen to love whatever she was put in a whole lot more than anyone else was.

If anything, she'd realised that the uniforms were like that because the owners usually had fetishes for that kind of thing… Much like her boyfriend, as much as he tried to deny it. He just claimed he had a thing for a certain blonde who had a blue cheerleader outfit in her wardrobe. He had a few kinks under everything that was for sure.

The fact that Lucy would be keeping whatever outfit she was forced to wear was really probably one of the only things Bickslow liked, other than being able to spend time with her. So it was with that particular thought in mind did he finally give in and let his girlfriend drag him into the small café that didn't even open for another half an hour. He could only hope the day went somewhat quickly, because the job flyer specifically stated they'd be there from six in the morning until ten at night. Bickslow was sure he'd be dead by the time he got home.

When they walked into the building, they were greeted by a slender man in a red fur cloak and a matching crown atop his head – an apparent king of some sort – and judging by the way he was suddenly smiling at the two of them as the glass door swung closed behind them, Bickslow could tell he was the owner. Already, Bickslow was sure his day was not going to go quickly at all.

"Ah! Welcome! You must be the mages from Fairy Tail, yes?" The man looked expectedly between the two before finally focusing on Lucy.

She nodded, and proffered the hand that wasn't in Bickslow's to the other. "We are. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Lucy."

"It's very nice to meet you, Miss Lucy. I'm Zeke," the man said quickly as he shook Lucy's hand and then Bickslow's, somewhat reluctantly. "And you are…?"

"Bickslow."

Zeke nodded. "Lucy and Bickslow. I see, I see." He quickly turned and headed towards the back of the room towards a curtain-covered archway. As he walked, waiting for the two mages to follow him through the café, he said, "Now, as you hopefully already know, part of this job requires you to be in costume."

Lucy followed Zeke into the back room with Bickslow in tow, and she could only smile softly up at her scowling Seith mage of a boyfriend as their boss for a day went on about the uniforms and job requirements – not to mention that being a Monday, it was a special day, apparently. Bickslow was honestly terrified of what that meant, and if it wasn't for Lucy holding his hand and for the words playing in his head on a loop, he would be running back out the front door.

Zeke stopped them once they got to a sort of locker room. They could see that some of the cubbies in there were already filled with bags or shoes, while others were empty. That wasn't surprising in the least though since they'd already seen a few others working as they walked through the building – Bickslow was sure he'd seen someone dressed as a maid out the front of the store, and then a man in the kitchen. He'd seen that one hadn't been in anything fancy, and Bickslow could only hope he'd be put at the bar or something at least. Something requiring him not to dress up was preferable to say the least.

"Now…" Zeke rummaged around in one drawer labelled Monday as the two mages stopped behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and up to Bickslow, who only blinked back at him in from beneath his visor. "You're definitely bigger than one would have expected, but…" He missed the snicker from the Seith mage that was silenced as his girlfriend elbowed him in the side before he pulled out a set of black and white clothes all neatly folded together. Turning back to Bickslow who was only smirking, he held out the clothes and said, "These should fit you nicely."

"Uh… Great, thanks," Bickslow mumbled as he let go of Lucy's hand to take the clothes in his arms. He only managed to turn to his side before he had a set of polished black shoes and white gloves placed on top of the pile. Bickslow barely gave himself time to even think about what it was he was forced to be putting on before he just shook his head and headed over to what he'd figured out was the male bathroom just behind him.

With Bickslow gone, Zeke opened another drawer and began searching for Lucy's uniform. "As for you," he said as he pulled out what Lucy was sure was a white bonnet. "I think this will fit you."

Lucy's eyes went wide as she looked to the black and white frilly dress, complete with matching white gloves, bonnet, and apron. Monday was Maid day, as she was quickly figuring out, and she could barely curb her own desire to turn and run out the door with Bickslow in tow. Even just looking at the dress as he held it up, Lucy was convinced it was going to be a hell of a lot shorter than necessary. To make matters worse, the shoes that came with it were six-inch heels.

Suddenly, Lucy was really beginning to wonder if the job was going to be as easy as it seemed, and she couldn't help but wonder if the uniforms were precisely why they had trouble hiring. Sure, it was a cosplay café, but come on – some things were just not meant to be worn to work.

Putting all of it aside though, she graciously took her uniform for the day from the man and pulled them in to her arms, her dress and apron held against her chest and her heels in one hand. "Thank you," she said kindly with a nod.

"When you two are ready, meet me back out front and I'll go over your tasks for the day with the other waitress and you. You can just place your personal belongings in any of the empty cubbies," Zeke said. Lucy nodded again as she slowly headed towards the women's restroom on the opposite side of the room, and before she disappeared through the curtains, she stopped when Zeke spoke again. "And tell that friend of yours to lose the visor, if you may."

 _Lose the visor?_ Lucy knew Bickslow wasn't going to take that too kindly. Just because he could go without it around her, didn't mean he was fine with being in public without it. It was the centre of his sense of security; the way he kept himself closed off. It was there for safety too, and Lucy knew that. It wasn't really just a way to protect him, but it was to protect others too. All of it was just in case though, as he'd told her once. Things could happen, and sometimes, he just wouldn't be able to get himself back in control and it was very possible he could end up hurting someone.

It was one of the downsides to his magic, but Lucy didn't mind. She trusted Bickslow with her life, and she knew he would never hurt her. Not intentionally, anyway. None of it bothered her in the slightest, and it definitely didn't change the way she felt about him. Already, Lucy was almost sure that nothing would ever be able to change the way she felt about him.

He was her doctor in shining armour, her protector and her loyal knight. He was, without a doubt, at the very centre of her world, and she didn't think she wanted that to ever change. Lucy almost didn't want to know what things would be like without Bickslow being there to chase away the darkness she was scared of being surrounded by ever again; to pick her up from the ground and keep her in one piece. She didn't want to know what things would be like if Bickslow wasn't there to make her laugh or even smile.

And if anything, it terrified Lucy that she didn't want to imagine her life without Bickslow right there beside her. She was just as terrified of losing Bickslow as she was of falling into that darkness again, because without Bickslow, there would be no one to pull her out. But with Bickslow…

 _With_ Bickslow, Lucy knew she wouldn't see it again. With Bickslow, she'd be happy, and she still wasn't willing to ever give up on that feeling. Not when she'd spent far too long without it.

But it still scared her that she only ever saw Bickslow right beside her when she imagined her future. She shouldn't have been thinking of what _their_ future would be like, and she shouldn't have been so certain that it was what she wanted. Not yet, anyway.

She _was_ certain though, and that was the only reason she wasn't completely losing her mind. She had to believe that there was a reason she felt that way already, that there was a reason she'd managed to fall in love with him in the space of three-something hours and that she didn't think there would be a day where she didn't love him. She had to believe that she hadn't been reckless and stupid and that none of her hopes and dreams would end up as shattered as her soul had once been.

She wanted to believe that there was a reason that it had been Bickslow of all people. And sure, Lucy knew that there were some things that just happened without having a reason as to why, but she just wanted to believe. She didn't want it to be a mystery. Not really, anyway. She wanted to believe that Bickslow had fallen in love with her all that time ago for a reason, and that there had a reason for her falling for him so quickly.

What could she say? She wanted that reason to be the same one that most people thought was just wishful thinking. She wanted that reason to be why she was so certain of what she wanted.

"Yeah, you're definitely keeping that."

She was pulled from her thoughts that had her daydreaming far too frequently by the voice she knew anywhere, and her smile only got brighter when she saw Bickslow coming back into the room (finally, she noted. Between the two of them, Lucy had realised he'd always taken far longer to get ready than she did) with an easy grin on his face. "You're keeping that too," she giggled as he sat down on the bench next to her and pulled the white gloves from his pocket to pull them on.

"Debatable," he scoffed. There was no way in hell his uniform was going to avoid being burned to ashes once he was done with it. Never again would he dress as a butler – crisp black pants, grey vest and white button up top, not to mention the fucking tailcoat. As nice as it was, he would not be keeping it.

Lucy sighed as she finally pulled on the black heels over the white thigh high stockings that went with her uniform, and she stood with the assistance of Bickslow once he got up first. She couldn't help but try and pull the hem of the dress down at the back even further once she was on her feet, and judging by the way Bickslow was toying with the front of it, his fingers fiddling with the white hem, Lucy was definitely sure he enjoyed it far more than she did. But that was expected.

"You know… I can tell that you don't really like it," Bickslow murmured as his hands slid up to her waist, ducking his head to whisper against her cheek. "But I _really_ like it." And sure, he really did like the fact that he was getting to spend the day with his cosplaying girlfriend, but he also knew that Lucy probably wasn't going to enjoy it as much as she'd thought just half an hour earlier. Not with an outfit like that, and Bickslow would be lying if he said he didn't wish the dress was just a little longer. Or a lot longer.

"I know you do," she mumbled. She frowned as she looked up and she lifted her hands to fumble with the clips that held his visor in place, but stilled as he suddenly pulled back. "You have to take it off," she said softly.

He didn't try and pull her hands away from where they were on the sides of his head, and he didn't step back any further so he would be out of reach. He only looked down at the concerned blonde who was the centre of his world and his heart. Bickslow's heart raced with his growing panic. "But I… I can't." His magic wasn't anywhere close to being unstable those days, but he still wore it just as a precaution, not just because he liked to hide behind it. Even so, he still didn't really want to go without it surrounded by strangers all day.

"I know that, but Zeke said so." Even without seeing his eyes, Lucy knew how he was feeling. She'd seen it when they'd been out for dinner one evening when they'd first started dating (and then a hint of it when they'd been in Akane) and he hadn't worn his visor – something he'd done for her. She'd been able to see how uncomfortable he was, and she knew that it was the same right then. Dropping her hands, letting them slowly slide down over his shoulders and his arms, she said with a soft smile, "But if you don't want to, then you can go home or to the guild or do whatever you want to do. We can find another job to do another day. It's okay." She wasn't going to force him into doing something that would make him uncomfortable. Making him dress up was one thing, but going without the visor was something else entirely.

Bickslow could only look down at her as he slowly blinked, his mind still running at a million miles an hour as he tried to decide what to do. He wanted to be doing that job with Lucy, no matter how much he hated the fact he was going to be dressed as a butler all day. He'd get over that just because it meant he'd have an entire day with her, even if it wasn't them just curling up on the lounge or in bed and watching stupid movies all day. No matter how much he wanted to be there with Lucy though, he just didn't know if he could. Not without his visor.

Being with Lucy for the last few months had honestly been amazing for him though. Not just because he couldn't put into words how relieved it had made him feel to finally have someone who cared about him for who he really was and who he'd become after all that time, but because he'd steadily been able to take down some of his walls for everyone else too. He was still the same person as he always was in the guild for the most part, but when he was with Lucy, he was more himself, even if he was in the middle of the guild or a restaurant somewhere.

It was like the longer he spent with Lucy, the more he forgot about everyone and everything else. He only ever saw her, and she made him feel like nothing else even mattered. To him, she was and always would be the most important thing and person in the room or world, and because of her, he could do things he'd never really been able to. He could sit in the guild occasionally without his visor, or even just go for a walk without it when they had nothing better to do. He trusted his friends and the world more with Lucy there beside him.

However there were still times where he wasn't comfortable keeping his walls down. Like when they went to crowded restaurants or cafes occasionally, or if he was surrounded by strangers he'd be forced to talk to all day. Somehow it was different, and Bickslow just didn't know if he could do it.

He wanted to do though. The more time he spent with Lucy, the more Bickslow realised that he didn't like having to constantly hide behind his walls. He didn't like that she was constantly seeing two different sides to him, and even if those two sides weren't all that different in the long run, he hated that it was like that in the first place. He hadn't felt that way until he'd been with Lucy though, and he really was trying to fix it just because he didn't think it was fair to Lucy.

Bickslow knew it wasn't going to be something he could achieve overnight, and it would truly take him a long time to get there, but one day, he wanted it to be where there was just one side to him. He would just be Bickslow, and he'd be hers. There'd be no walls, and there wouldn't be the Bickslow that only she saw and then the Bickslow that only the guild saw. That just wasn't fair on Lucy, and it definitely didn't do much in the way of making him believe he actually deserved to be with her half of the time.

But maybe he wouldn't ever get to a point where his walls didn't exist at all. Maybe to an extent, that was what it would always be like for him because he'd lost too much and he just wouldn't be able to fully come back from it. Maybe there would always be a part of him that only Lucy would ever see. Bickslow just didn't know, but he wanted to know. He wanted to believe that it wouldn't always be like that, and Bickslow could tell that it would get better if Lucy stayed. She'd continue to put him back together, piece by tiny piece; she'd fix _him_ like she'd always been doing, and he'd be able to stop hiding behind his walls. At least for the most part.

He wanted to be able to do that, but Bickslow still knew it wouldn't be easy. It would be hard and it would make him want to retreat into himself even more, but he would still try. He had to try _because_ of Lucy and _for_ Lucy. But he still had to start somewhere.

With a sigh, he only nodded slightly before he ducked his head to lightly press a kiss to her cheek. "Alright," he said softly. Silently, he pulled away from Lucy and headed back towards the bathroom behind him.

Lucy was about to turn towards the curtains going back towards the front of the café when Bickslow came back out just a minute later. She'd truly expected that it meant Bickslow would be leaving, and she wouldn't have blamed him if that were the case, so when she heard shuffling behind her as he put his visor with the rest of his things, she was honestly in shock and she couldn't have kept the smile off her face if she'd tried. He'd even gone as far as sort of slicking his hair back (she'd come to realise that there really wasn't much he could do with it, not that he ever did much to it anyway), and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't just a little disappointed he wouldn't be keeping his uniform now.

"Are you going to be okay?" Lucy asked as she stepped up to Bickslow again, her hands lifting up to rest over his shoulders. She could see how uncomfortable he was, even right then, and she still wouldn't have minded all that much if Bickslow couldn't go through with it.

He nodded. "I'll be fine," he answered. As long as Lucy was there, he would be fine. Or at least, he hoped he would be. It was just one day after all. "I want to do this, and I need to do this."

Lucy couldn't help but feel proud of Bickslow as he smiled back at her, and she lifted her head just that little bit more to light press her lips to his. She knew it was a big step for Bickslow, no matter how small it seemed to anyone else. From the time where they'd actually been together, Lucy had been able to see that Bickslow had been trying to be more of the person that she knew when he was around everyone else. It had been slow and honestly barely there at all, but Lucy knew.

And she was proud.

He was trying to change for her, and she knew that. Even though she knew she should feel that she didn't want him to change (and to an extent, she really didn't because she loved him the way he was and for who he was), she also kind of did want him to. But it wasn't so much changing as it was making everyone believe he was changing. In essence, all he would be doing was coming out from behind the walls that most people knew he had. He would be letting people in, and for Bickslow, that was huge.

But no matter how long it took for Bickslow, or even if things didn't work out like he'd planned and there would always be that part of him only she would ever see, she would still be there, and she'd do her best to support him and remind him that she wasn't leaving. And even then, just for a day in some stupid café that she knew he would rather not be in, he was trying, and Lucy would do her best to make the day as comfortable for him as she possibly could.

"Well, I believe you'll be fine too," she said with a smile as she stepped back and towards the curtain behind her. "But just think, you'll only have to go without your visor until ten o'clock tonight."

* * *

By the time the dinner rush came around, Bickslow wasn't even worried about the fact he hadn't been wearing his visor all day. His feet hurt like hell (though not as much as Lucy's), he had a pounding headache, he was tired, and he was so fucking bored of hearing all of the comments about his girlfriend. Sure, they were good comments, but she was still his girlfriend, and when almost every single guy who was above the age of twelve was too focused on the blonde waitress with the nice ass (Lucy wasn't the only one wishing the hem of her dress wasn't just a little lower) instead of the menus and waiter in front of them, Bickslow got tired of it all very quickly.

So as Bickslow stood at one table, the notepad in his right hand and pen idly twirling between the fingers of his left hand, he was finding it hard not to just grab the menus in the teenagers' hands and slam them over the back of their heads. Or the babies could do it. The amount of times Lucy had had to come up and caught a menu before it was slammed down on someone's head was far too many, but he was just a little glad his boss and co-workers for the day were oblivious to it.

"Are you guys going to order or what?" Bickslow said dryly as he stared down at the group of male teenagers. He was bored out of his mind and as much as he hated to admit it, he had other people to serve, because there was only one other waitress on, and she spent more time at the bar talking to one of the chefs. "If not, I'll just come ba—"

"How old do you think she is?" the blond teenager of the group suddenly spoke, his eyes transfixed on something on the other side of the room and his lips curling up into a smirk that honestly made Bickslow worry.

The two teenagers on the opposite side of the table turned to look to where the blond was, and soon, all four of them were sharing the same grin and Bickslow suddenly looked over his shoulder. He sighed as he turned back the teenagers in front of him. "Seriously guys?" Of course they were talking about Lucy. Of fucking course.

The one with dark blue glasses was the one to speak next. "Eighteen, nineteen tops, I'd say," he said, ignoring Bickslow some more.

"Nah, she's gotta be like, seventeen or something," the brunet of the group said.

"No way, dude," the one with glasses argued as Bickslow rolled his eyes. "At least eighteen."

"She's twenty, actually," Bickslow mumbled. "Twenty-one in a few months if you must know." They all turned to look at the blue-and-black haired waiter dressed as the butler at the end of their table, and for the first time, they actually took note of his presence. His arms were folded over his chest by that point, the pen and notepad still in his hands as he stared down to them in his apparent boredom. "Now are you going to order or what?" he asked.

He only rolled his eyes again as they each turned to look at the blonde who moved on to another table just a few away from where they sat. Bickslow was sure he'd seen the exact moment they'd fallen in love (or lust, probably, considering they were teenagers) with his girlfriend, because it had happened as soon as she'd smiled at the customers at her own table. Granted, he'd probably made something close the same stupid face the first time he'd seen her actually smiling after he'd first met her, but it just looked incredibly stupid on those morons, but he still couldn't bring himself to leave.

Of all the people he'd served that day who had been interested in his girlfriend (or just her ass, given that if she moved just a little too quickly, the back of her dress would come up ever so slightly and you'd be able to catch a glimpse of her panty-covered behind. It was really the one time Bickslow would ever mind), the teenagers he was serving then were the most entertaining.

"Shit. Twenty? Really?" the blond muttered, his jaw slightly slack as he stared at Lucy. "She doesn't look it. I bet she's fine as hell under that dress though…"

"You think she'd still go to prom with me though?" the brunet asked his buddies.

The blond laughed along with the one in the blue glasses, and Bickslow couldn't help but smirk at them. It was a little cute, if he had to be perfectly honest. "Like hell she would," the blond laughed. "She's so far out of your league. I'm gonna ask her though. No way she'd say no to _me_."

And that was where Bickslow drew the line. He could, to an extent, put up with them fawning over her from a distance, but he couldn't stand them actually asking her out, even if it was to a high school prom. He wasn't even tempted to let them ask her, just to see her shut them down. "Alright you brats," Bickslow started as he leant forward and put his hands on the edge of their table, bringing all of their eyes to him. "Firstly, she really is so far out of your league, because she's so far out of _my_ league that we're not even playing the same game anymore."

"Got that right," the one in the glasses snickered, getting a high-five from the brunet beside him.

"Secondly," Bickslow continued, his garnet eyes narrowing as he focused on the blond in particular. "I can guarantee you that she really is twenty, and _fine as hell_ doesn't do her justice." Of course, Bickslow didn't quite understand how Lucy being twenty was a problem. She was still young, very young, and it wasn't like she looked older than she looked. She still looked almost exactly the same as she did when he'd met her at seventeen.

"Like you'd know," the blond scoffed.

His lips curled up into an almost wicked grin as he continued to stare at them. "Thirdly," he began quietly, watching as the blond he was focused on swallow as he stared up at him. Suddenly, it was far too tempting to let Lucy shut the kid down. "She'll say no to going to prom to you. Apart from the fact that she's at least, what? Three, maybe four years older than you, she still wouldn't go with you. I bet you anything you like on that."

The blond glanced to his friends opposite him as Bickslow straightened up, the wicked grin still in place. Bickslow knew the kid was far too zealous to back down, especially not now when he'd offered him anything he wanted. Bickslow knew he'd win though. He knew his girlfriend, and he knew there was no way in hell she'd even joke about saying yes to a bunch of teenagers. If anything, she'd have as much fun with it as he did, and Bickslow was so waiting for that sweet, sweet moment where he got to embarrass the hell out of them.

"Okay," the blond said firmly as he sat back in the booth seat and folded his arms. "If she says yes, you pay our cheque. No matter how expensive."

Bickslow shrugged. That was easy. "Deal."

"A-And you b-buy us alcohol!" the one beside the blond said. Bickslow hadn't even really noticed he'd been there, probably because he'd been the only one who had actually been looking at the menu rather than his girlfriend.

Bickslow arched a brow. "Are you all over sixteen?" Sure, he may have drunk before _he'd_ turned sixteen, but he wasn't about to get in trouble for serving alcohol to minors, regardless of the fact the legal drinking age was in fact sixteen (it was just a little odd that the drinking and marrying ages in Fiore were both sixteen, yet you weren't classified as a legal adult until eighteen). They all nodded to Bickslow, all of them even pulling out their wallets and proving their ages to him. "Alright then. But if she says no…"

"She won't," the blond grinned.

"We'll see about that."

Bickslow folded his arms across his chest after he shoved the notepad and pen into his pockets, and he turned to watch Lucy finishing up writing an order for the customers in a booth not too far from where the teenagers were. He wasn't about to interrupt her and be rude. At least not to the other diners. The ones in his section, and specifically the teenagers at that table were a different story.

It was as Lucy was quickly walking away and dropping the pen into the front pocket of her apron and heading towards the bar did Bickslow finally do anything, and as she made to walk past him, only having the intention of looking up to smile at him like she usually did when she walked past (just to remind him she was still there with him and it was their day together, not that he could forget), his arm quickly went out and caught her around her waist, pulling her into his side.

"Bickslow!" she giggled, pulling herself free as she looked up to that mischievous smirk and failing to notice the faces of the teenagers beside her, and how they were almost dropping in disappointment. "What was that for?"

"I need to borrow you for a minute, Cosplayer."

She arched a brow as the corner of her mouth lifted up into a small smirk. "You do realise you don't have to _borrow_ me, right?" She was so far past confused right then that it wasn't even funny.

"I know, but…" He slowly turned again as he lifted his arm to go around her shoulders instead – something he found a lot more comfortable when she was six inches _shorter_ – to have her face the table with him. "These kids want to ask you something," he said slowly, his grin never faltering.

The blond narrowed his eyes at the man. "Watch it, old guy." He wasn't a fan of being called a kid. Not in the slightest.

"Old guy?" Lucy giggled as Bickslow rolled his eyes. She was sure either Bickslow had done something to piss the teenagers off, or they'd done something to piss him off. "How old do you think he is?"

"At least thirty," the brunet answered quickly to a chorus of snickers from the others.

Lucy couldn't contain her laughter as she looked back up to Bickslow and the mock hurt on his face. Her hand went out to rest flat against his vest-covered chest and she crooned, "Oh baby, they think you're thirty. You poor thing." Lucy was sure it was just a joke, but still, her boyfriend didn't look even close to being thirty. Sure, he might just be turning twenty-four at the end of the year, but he wasn't thirty. Twenty-three wasn't close to being old at all.

Bickslow sighed. "Poor me," he mumbled. Looking back down to the teenagers, he fought to keep the smile from his face as he watched the blond in particular obviously try and come up with a plan. The kid had lost the game before it had even started, and Bickslow didn't feel bad about it at all. "Now, are you gonna ask her or what?"

The blond looked to Lucy who was only smiling at him and waiting for whatever it was he was asking her, and seeing the kid blush, Bickslow was on the verge of falling down to the floor to laugh. Clearing his throat, the teenager glanced to each of his buddies again before he barely puffed his chest out (something that made Lucy only raise an eyebrow), and he said as clearly and seriously as he could manage, "You wanna go out with me and come to my prom, baby?"

Lucy just looked to the teenager in complete shock for a moment as his confidence and expression remained unwavering, before she looked back up to Bickslow. "Is he serious?" she muttered.

"Oh yeah," Bickslow chuckled. "I said I'd pay their cheque if you said yes, even though I told them you'd say no."

"And what do you do if I do say no?"

Bickslow shrugged. "Nothing. I'll probably still pay it anyway. I'm in a good mood and I'm inclined to believe I'm doing him a favour by having you brutally shut him down." It was almost like a life lesson, or at least it was in Bickslow's head. The kid assumed that he could get what he wanted, and that just wasn't how the world worked.

The kid wanted his girlfriend, and Bickslow just wasn't going to let that happen.

Besides… He still kind of wanted to satisfaction of seeing Lucy say no, even though at that point, he really wouldn't care if she did say yes. Because at the end of the day, Bickslow was still the only one who got to see just what she had under that uniform. It was all about having fun with the game.

Lucy sighed, and with a soft smile she whispered, "Maybe you should become a teacher instead of being a mage."

"W-Wait… Did you just… Did you s-say… Mage?" the one next to the blond broke in again, his face a mask of terror as he lifted his head from the menu again.

"Fairy Tail, baby," Bickslow chuckled, and his tongue lolled from his mouth to proudly show the guild mark as Lucy lifted her right hand to show hers.

In an instant, all of their faces bar the blond's held the same look of absolute terror, and Bickslow and Lucy watched in confusion as the one sitting next to the blond suddenly leant to the side to whisper in the apparent leader's ear. "I-I think you m-m-might have j-just asked a m-m-member of t-the R-Raijinshuu's girlfriend t-t-to our p-prom," he stuttered, as usual.

Bickslow's wide grin was back as he leant down to whisper in said girlfriend's ear, "I think they're slowly figuring out who I am." It wasn't that surprising that they hadn't though, just because most didn't recognise him without the visor. They really just knew of him, and anyone who's read any recent editions of the top magazine in Fiore regarding the guilds and mages of the country would know that Lucy Heartfilia wasn't exactly as single as she'd once been, thanks to a certain member of the Thunder God Tribe.

What could he say? Being part of Laxus' elite bodyguard had some unwanted popularity perks. That tended to happen when they followed around someone like Laxus.

The blond turned to the teenager beside him. "Yeah, and? Do you see the guy here? No, you don't, so I don't see the problem," the blond shot back. He knew who Lucy was. He'd seen her in enough of the magazines to know what she looked like, especially in a bikini.

"Matt…" the one with the dark blue glasses said quietly, his eyes flicking between the grinning blue-and-black haired waiter at the end of their booth and to his blond friend. "I think that _is_ him…"

Matt's brow was furrowed as he quickly looked back up to Bickslow, then back to his friends who were all looking at him in shock as he leant back against the leather booth seat and folded his arms. "Nah, it's not. That guy has some sort of stupid visor. This isn't him."

"You should probably listen to your friends, you know," Bickslow suddenly said softly and calmly, instead with just a wicked smirk on his face. He was internally dying from laughter as Matt slowly looked back up to him as his eyes went wide with realisation. "They're onto something there."

"I… You…" Matt looked quickly between every person around him, focusing on the two mages. There was no way the guy in front him and dressed as a butler was the same guy that was also part of Laxus' elite guard, right? Matt wasn't a complete idiot; he knew who the Raijinshuu were and he knew that one of them just happened to be dating the blonde that was also standing right in front of him.

But surely that wasn't the same man… It couldn't be…

Deep down, he knew it was, and as Matt came to accept it, he could only do his best to slide along the booth seat and towards the wall, pushing his nervous friend against the wall as his hands went up in surrender. "O-Oh god… I am… I am so sorry," Matt stumbled over his words, not quite understanding why the man was back to grinning like an idiot. "I wouldn't have asked if I'd know that she was… That she was _your_ girlfriend… Oh god… Please don't hurt me."

Bickslow chuckled. "Oh, come on. You seriously think I'm gonna hurt you?" All four of them nodded quickly, and Bickslow suddenly felt a little hurt. They actually thought he'd hurt them over that? Sure, he loved the woman, but he wasn't gonna hurt a teenager for asking her out. He wouldn't hurt anyone for asking her out. Hell, he wouldn't hurt anyone at all unless they deserved it… For something like hurting her, or something.

He looked down to Lucy in shock to see her scowling at him before she knelt down on the ground in front of the seemingly frightened teenagers. "Shit, I'm not that scary, right?" Laxus was the scary one… Or Freed. Not him.

"You've been known to be," Lucy warned as she looked over her shoulder quickly. She loved him, but she had to admit he had his moments where he could be a little threatening and terrifying. It didn't help that he was pretty big, and when he had his visor on, he could definitely look a little wicked when he wanted to. It wasn't very often though. Smiling softly though, she looked back to the frightened teenager before her, and she said, "I'm flattered that you even considered me as your prom date, but maybe you should stick to someone that's actually your own age… And doesn't already have a boyfriend."

Matt nodded again. "But… Will he…?"

"Don't worry about him," Lucy giggled. "He just looks scary sometimes. He's really just a huge softy on the inside though. He's… mostly harmless."

"Oi, Cosplayer…"

Straightening back up, she took the remaining three menus from where they were sitting in the centre of the table and she placed them in front of each of them. "Now… I do believe my _boyfriend_ offered to pay for your meals, so feel free to order anything you like, and as much of it as you want." She turned as the corner of her mouth curled up into a smirk aimed at Bickslow, and standing up on her tiptoes in the painful heels, she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek as she whispered, "Be nice, Bicks."

As she quickly headed over to the bar and kitchen to get her actual table's order in, she couldn't help but feel proud of Bickslow again. Sure, she was just a little frustrated that he'd baited the kid into a bet that he would obviously win, but he'd also been relaxed the entire time.

Well… Until he scared the kids. But that wasn't the point.

The point was that he'd lasted more than twelve hours without his visor, surrounded by hundreds of people and talking to them. Or, in his current table's case, terrifying them. He only had another four hours to go until they'd be done with what was quite possibly one of the most annoying jobs she'd ever been on, but that would be a breeze.

She wasn't even worried about Bickslow right then like she had been when their shift had started as the café opened, because she knew Bickslow was fine without his visor right then. It surprised her, but it made her so incredibly happy and proud because it was a very big step for Bickslow, having chosen to take down a very big part of his walls. They were still there, but they were coming down. Ever so slowly…

So as Lucy went back to rushing around the café taking the orders of those she had yet to get to after getting her other one to the chefs, Bickslow went back to waiting for the annoying teenagers to get theirs out. At least they were actually reading the menu now. He didn't even care that he'd kind of lost the game he'd started in the first place. Paying for their order was nothing. They could order four of everything on the menu and he'd still pay it (although a little begrudgingly, because it would be a lot if they did that), but he'd still pay it.

He just didn't care, because to him, he'd still kind of won. He was winning every day of his life, because he was the one who had Lucy, and no one else did.

* * *

"Ah, Miss Lucy! A moment, please."

Lucy turned to the voice of her boss for the day, right as she was about to walk up to a table and see if the girls there were ready to order. "Yes, Zeke?" she replied, following the tall man away from the tables and over to the less crowded bar. By that point of the night, things were calming down a little as the dinner rush drew to a close. They still had another two hours left until closing, but that would be fine.

Assuming they could stay awake though. Lucy was practically dead on her feet, and she knew Bickslow was the same way. She just couldn't wait to get home so she could actually fall asleep and get some rest.

"You see that man over there in the corner booth?" Zeke said quietly as he pointed towards a man with short black hair in a dark blue suit.

She looked over her shoulder slowly to where the man was sitting, and she instantly felt a shiver run down her spine when she saw the way he was looking at _her_. He wasn't smirking or smiling like she'd find Bickslow doing occasionally; he was just staring. She couldn't help but reach behind her to attempt to pull the back of her dress down a little bit more again. God knows how many people other than Bickslow had seen the _bright pink_ panties she had on.

"What about him?" she asked suspiciously as she turned back to Zeke.

"Well, he's a regular here," Zeke began. Lucy could tell he was quickly growing slightly uncomfortable and looked just a little worried as he faced the blonde. "He comes in every night at eight and stays until closing at ten, and he usually requests the same waitress. But, since his usual is out with the flu, and Kat is…" He turned quickly to look around the mostly empty café and for the other waitress on, only to frown when he didn't find her anyway. "And Kat is nowhere to be found."

Lucy glanced back over her shoulder to the customer and then back to Zeke. She couldn't shake the sudden unease that swept over her from looking to him again. He was asking Lucy to take the man's order. "Can't Bickslow take his order? He's in his section, after all, and he should be back from his break by the time he's ready to order."

Zeke shook his head. "He specifically requested you, and I know you're only working here for the day, but I wouldn't ask you to comply if I had any other choice. If I had more of my usual waitresses on, then I would have recommended him someone else for the night, but unfortunately, it's really just you and your partner at this point."

 _Recommended him someone else?_ Lucy wasn't even sure she was working in a café anymore. She was a damn waitress. She shouldn't be able to be requested. Or at least, she didn't think she should be.

But she knew she didn't have any choice in whether or not she would go and take the man's order. Her co-worker for the day, Kat, obviously wasn't going to, and apparently Bickslow couldn't, so that really only left her able to go and deal with it herself. It was her job, after all, and no matter how terrible it was, she'd have to go and do it. All Lucy could do was hope that he wasn't as bad as some of the other people she'd served that day – she'd stopped counting how many times she'd been flirted with, hit on, or just plain complimented.

Sighing, Lucy nodded as she reached into the pocket of her apron for her notepad and pen. As Lucy turned, walking past the customers left in her section and letting them know someone would be coming to take their order shortly and apologising for the wait, Zeke quickly rushed off in search for his other waitress. With Bickslow on a break, having gone right as Lucy came off hers, and Kat missing, it really only left Lucy and Zeke himself out there, and that was not ideal. Not when Zeke was mostly at the bar.

Walking up to the man, Lucy forced herself to smile brightly as she stomached the sudden fear. She was still trying to get over the fact that this man thought he could request people. Regardless of whether or not he was a regular there, it frankly freaked the hell out of Lucy.

"Good evening, sir," Lucy said as she adjusted the pen in her hand. "Have you decided on anything to order yet?"

The man only continued to look up to the blonde waitress before his eyes slowly raked down her body just as another shiver went down her spine, before he sighed and reached for a menu from the centre of the table and opened it up. "What's your name, doll?" he asked instead.

"Lucy."

"Lucy…" he echoed, her name rolling off his tongue as he turned the menu over. "I've never seen you here before, Lucy. Why's that?"

"Because I don't actually work here," Lucy answered politely. "I'm only here for the day." Lucy was suddenly a whole lot more glad that that was the case too, just because it meant she wouldn't have to ever see this man again.

He sighed. "What a pity. You should quit whatever job it is you have and work here permanently. They could use more beauties like you."

"I… Uh…" Lucy didn't want to say thank you for that. Not in the slightest. It was like every single word that came from his mouth could only ever make her feel more uncomfortable, and more than anything, she just wanted him to order something so she could get away from him. She'd much sooner go back to serving the two young women at another table who were set on taking a million adorable pictures with her for whatever reason. "I'm afraid I can't do that," she laughed nervously as she lifted a hand to rub at the back of her neck – a habit she'd picked up from Natsu over the years. "But um… Have you decided on anything? Any drinks first?"

"Just get me an iced tea for now."

Lucy nodded. "Anything else for now?"

"Make it quick," he ordered. "Come on. Chop chop." Lucy only nodded again as she forced another smile, and quickly, she turned and proceeded to head to the bar. It was only when she felt the distinct feel of a hand being smacked against her (thankfully covered) rear did she let out a yelp of surprise, and her face turned a bright shade of red as her hands went back to keep her skirt in place.

Mortified didn't even begin to describe how she felt right then, and all she wanted to do was turn back around and yell at the man. How dare he do that to her, let alone think he could get away with it! He couldn't do that to her. Hell, he couldn't do that to anyone. Lucy was more than ready to just toss in the job for the rest of the night, not even bothering with the reward (hell, she'd hand the tips over just because she didn't want to be anything close to associated with that café ever again if that was how the staff were treated by the customers), but she couldn't.

She only managed to see her boss for the day, Zeke, looking to her apologetically and mouthing an apology and silently begging her to move on from it. As much as Lucy didn't want to keep her mouth shut, she would. She would do her best to forget it get on with the last stretch of the shift, and she'd be damn sure to make it known that her more than rude customer couldn't get away with something like that again.

To say she was tempted to _let_ Bickslow be just a little menacing was an understatement, though something was telling her it wouldn't have an effect on her customer. Not with his usual methods, anyway.

It was when Bickslow walked back out into the front room of the café again as his short break ended did he become aware of what had been going on when he'd been gone. When he came back out, he wasn't the least bit surprised to see only a few people at the bar eating silently, and only a handful of the tables and booths filled. It was a nice change from what it had been just an hour earlier, and he was far too eager to get home at the end of the night.

He was surprised though to find his new friends beckoning him over. His teenagers from the evening still hadn't left, and over the course of the next couple of hours, they'd almost befriended the Seith mage. The shy one with the stutter had left right before Bickslow had gone on his break, so seeing that he had no tables to attend to right away, Bickslow slid down into the booth next to the blond, Matt, and pulled on his gloves.

"What's up?" Bickslow asked, looking to each of them. "Decided you want me to pay your cheque now?" Bickslow hadn't even worked out how much it would even be yet, but he was sure it would be high. He still didn't care though, and when they'd ordered three separate dinners and were on their fourth round of dessert (at least), Bickslow hadn't been surprised.

After all, they had someone else paying their bill and had no limits on it. He didn't blame them for probably (and hopefully) making themselves sick by overeating.

"You might wanna make sure your girlfriend is okay," Rhett, the brunet, said quickly as he glanced over his shoulder and gestured to the man in the booth that Lucy was standing in front of.

They'd been sitting there for the last twenty minutes watching her get borderline groped, and even they felt sorry for her. Just like they felt sorry for every other waitress he did it do. They frequented the place as often as the businessman did (what could they say? The waitresses were hot), so it wasn't the first time they'd seen the behaviour.

The only difference now was that they were also just a little worried about the guy himself. He probably had no idea he was talking to a mage who had the ability to kick his ass across the store (something they only knew when Bickslow had told them not to piss her off, because she'd probably do it to them and he knew firsthand how much it hurt), and also happened to have a boyfriend who would probably do more than kick his ass across the room if he saw the guy touch his girl.

Plus… They did just genuinely like the maid and the butler for the night. They could mess with Bickslow, and he'd fuck with them back to an extent, and Lucy seemed like a nice girl. It didn't help that the three were probably just as in love with her as Bickslow was.

At the mention of Lucy though, Bickslow suddenly leant to the side slightly to see past the teenager in the glasses, Kai, sitting opposite him. He could see that Lucy's smile wasn't close to being genuine and was more forced than anything, and he could see that she was quickly losing patience with the man, and he could definitely see the way his hand reached out from where it was on the table to lightly toy with the hem of her dress. That, he didn't like. Not at all. Nor the way he was looking at her. Oh no.

But, he knew Lucy, and he knew what she could handle. As long as the guy didn't actually touch her, Bickslow didn't see a reason to worry too much. Of course, he had no idea just what Lucy had been putting up with in the last twenty minutes. From getting her ass slapped by a stranger, to getting told her dress is too short and having to constantly step away when his hand went out to rest against her lower back. She was really on the verge of giving him what for, but she was doing her best to just avoid it all. Zeke had only apologised profusely about a million times in that space too.

"She's a big girl," Bickslow shrugged as he stood back up. "She can handle herself." That wasn't to say he wouldn't be keeping an eye on her though, just in case.

So when Lucy finally managed to pull herself away from the man, heading towards the bar to get the order in to the chef that was still on, Bickslow quickly pulled her aside as she walked past where he was wiping down a table.

He looked down to her with soft eyes as he quietly asked, "Are you alright?" He'd only been watching them for a few minutes, but it was like the longer he watched, the more uncomfortable _he_ felt.

Lucy nodded. Bickslow's hand on her waist was much more comforting than her diner's, but she couldn't help but wonder what it would cause to happen once she took his order over to him. She was sure the man was watching her, because it was like he hadn't been able to tear her eyes off of her the entire time. If the first thing Lucy would be doing when she got home wasn't climbing into bed to sleep, it would be to shower. Was it possible to wash a stare away? She wanted to believe she could do it.

"I'm okay," she answered softly. She could tell where Bickslow was looking just past her, and the corners of her mouth lifted up into a tired smile. "He's just… A little handsy. And a little pervy. It's nothing I can't deal with."

"Yeah, well… If he goes too far, don't hold back, alright?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I know, Bicks," she giggled quietly, only getting the faintest of smirks from the Seith mage. "Now get back to work before Zeke yells at you again."

So quietly, Bickslow went back to cleaning the table when he looked behind him just to see his boss for the day glaring at him, and Lucy quickly went off to get her least favourite customer's order in. She completely avoided going to that general part of the café until his order was even ready – and thankfully, it was another twenty minutes before it would be up anyway. Instead, she went around taking a few other orders or tidying up a few other tables when Bickslow was taking someone else's order to talking to the teenagers for a minute.

When the man's order was up, Bickslow only made sure to be standing with the teenagers and watching Lucy carefully, just like his new friends were. He couldn't quite hear what it was he'd be saying from where Bickslow stood, but that was okay. He could still see and he could keep an eye on Lucy, which was what mattered. It was all because he just didn't trust the guy.

Slowly though, Lucy made her way back to the man's table with his plate balanced on one hand. _Please want nothing else, please want nothing else, please want nothing else._ The words repeated over and over in her head as she forced herself to take each step, and she fought the urge to screw her eyes shut when she saw his dark eyes turning to her once again.

Forcing a smile once again as she walked up to the table, she gently lowered the plate in front of him and she placed her hands on her hips. "Was there anything else I could get you then?" she asked politely, all while hoping that the answer would be no.

The man took a slow sip from his iced tea that Lucy had filled up just before, and his eyes never left her body as he did so. "How much is your hourly rate?" the man asked instead as he placed his glass down.

"E-Excuse me, sir?"

"Leave this place, and come work for me," he explained. Then, just as slowly as his mouth curled up into a smile that had Lucy repressing a shiver and groan of disgust, his hand lifted and Lucy's eyes went wide when she felt it come down to rest on her hip, before inching down lower.

She tried to step back as her face became flushed and she only quickly glanced to the side to where she knew Bickslow was standing and watching just a few tables away. "S-Sir, that's not…" She didn't know how many times she'd told him that she didn't actually work there, nor how many times she'd had to step away and out of his reach or that she didn't appreciate his advances.

"I'll pay you double what you earn here or from whatever it is you do—"

She tried to step back again but was only stopped by his hand and a quiet yelp escaped. "That is simple not possible, and I don't care to wor—"

"And everything would be covered," he continued, his dark eyes focused solely on her. "All you'd have to do is wear whatever—"

He was cut off that time by a tall blue-and-black haired man sliding into the seat beside him with a firm yet wide grin. "I'll work for you," Bickslow said, his arm going over the man's shoulders. The sudden interruption was enough for the man to drop his hand from where it had once again been over Lucy's ass, and as soon as Bickslow had seen that hand going lower and stopping her from moving, as much as she protested it, Bickslow was done.

Off came the gloves (quite literally, and he barely paid any attention to the snickering of the teenagers as he left them), and off he went to do something about the imbecile who thought he could get away with touching his girlfriend. Or anyone, for that matter. He'd overheard enough of the conversation to know that he was somehow offering Lucy a job, and Bickslow knew he'd just have to find a way to go along with it. Anything to get Lucy away from him.

"Um, I don't know who you are, but I'm not talking to you," the man muttered, trying to get Bickslow away from him so he could go back to attempting to hire the blonde for something that Lucy was sure not a job any respectful woman would take.

"But I'm talking to you," Bickslow pouted. He stood his ground and he only crossed a leg over his knee as he pressed himself up against the man's side. Uncomfortable didn't even begin to come close to describing how he felt, but for Lucy, he'd get over it. The man looked at him in complete shock as Bickslow continued to speak. "Blondie here obviously isn't interested in whatever it is that you have to offer, but I certainly am."

The man repressed a shudder as Bickslow trailed a black polished finger down the front of his shirt – something that made Lucy and the teenagers watch in complete confusion, shock, and slight mortification. Lucy just really wasn't sure what she was watching though. She couldn't remember ever seeing Bickslow act like that, and especially not without his visor.

Bickslow's grin softened into a smirk, one with just a hint of malice in it as he leaned in slightly to the man's ear and whispered, "You wouldn't even have to pay me. I'd work for you for free, baby."

"That's… That's really not necessary…"

"'Course it is. Wouldn't want to make it seem like a chore or anything."

Lucy's jaw was slack as she watched what was happening in front of her. She knew what Bickslow was doing, and oh was she glad for her doctor in shining armour for coming to her rescue, but she was just so confused. The man could only try to get away once again, except Bickslow had no intentions of budging. Not one inch. Lucy could see the anger building up in him, and she was just a little worried about what would happen if Bickslow went too far.

But knowing Bickslow, she expected him to do just that.

"I do have some rules though," Bickslow said thoughtfully as he raised his hand and held up three fingers.

The man narrowed his eyes at the Seith mage and tried to push Bickslow out again, but suddenly, he stopped, and he could only stare at Bickslow before him. Lucy was sure she'd seen the faintest flash of green for not even a second, and she could only assume that it was what the man had seen too.

"Firstly, I do not wear skirts or dresses or anything feminine of the sort." Regardless of what his usual attire consisted of. "Secondly," he continued, his smirk only getting wickeder by the second as the man grew even more confused. "Sundays shall be known as No Clothes Sunday, and so I will in fact be wearing no clothes and doing whatever it is you wish me to do without any articles of clothing, and thirdly…"

Lucy couldn't help let out the quietest of giggles at his second rule. Though he may have been joking with the man, it wasn't entirely far from the truth. She'd spent quite a few of her Sundays with Bickslow, and he really did enjoy the entire 'no clothes' thing. Well, for the most part. Before they'd been dating, it had just been his lazy day where they'd mostly just spend all day and possibly all night watching movies or talking in their pyjamas. Most of those times ended with Lucy falling asleep on Bickslow or on the lounge though, and after the second time it had happened, they'd just been called their pyjama parties.

After they'd started dating though… Well, after that, it was either Bickslow spending the day in just his boxers or briefs or pyjama pants while Lucy wore the barest amount of clothing possible, or they really did go without clothes. That was assuming they were both in town though, and as of late, they'd been missing out on their Sundays together.

Lucy hoped it would change soon though. As much as it pained her to admit it, spending her day curled up with Bickslow in bed, with or without clothes, and eating the simplest, laziest and easiest of meals and foods, or as much junk food as they could consume all day and watching more terrible movies (or letting them play in the background) was one of her favourite things to do in her spare time. Of course, they'd spent the majority of the previous No Clothes Sunday, which was just the day before, sleeping. Napping was also an essential part of No Clothes Sunday.

But aside from his joke, Lucy could hear the change in his voice, and as she looked back to Bickslow, her eyes went slightly wide again when she swore the colour of his eyes had changed. It was almost as if… As if there was a faint green glow to them. _He couldn't be, could he?_ She hadn't seen Bickslow use his magic before, not when the one time she'd seen it he'd been trying to use it on her and she'd had her eyes closed.

"Lucy, close your eyes."

As soon as the soft but firm words had left Bickslow's mouth, she quickly closed her eyes and held a hand over them just for good measure.

Bickslow looked back to the man in front of him as soon as Lucy had closed her eyes. He didn't want her getting pulled under the influence of his Figure Eyes, even a little bit. He wasn't worried about the teenagers who he knew were watching him from where they sat, nor the few others in the café who were only glancing over in their direction from the sudden commotion. It was only Lucy who could be a problem, just because of where she was standing. She was too close, and Bickslow had no intentions of ever letting her know what it felt like to be under his control – completely and entirely.

"Thirdly," Bickslow said softly again, his almond-shaped eyes focusing on the frightened ones of the man before him. Bickslow could almost see the reflection of his own eyes in the man's as the green glow began to get brighter, until the onyx eyes reflected nothing and became dull and lifeless with Bickslow's Figure Eyes activating completely. "You don't ever come back here again. Understood?"

The man nodded quickly just as Bickslow briefly let his control over him slip. He could let it go long enough for the man to be aware and be able to control some of his own movements, but that was it. The only exception was that Bickslow always made sure they would still have the ability to understand what they were doing (or hearing, in that case), because that was important. Other than that, they were a puppet and Bickslow was the puppeteer.

Slowly and carefully, Bickslow focused on making the man stand from his table after he stood to make room for the man to do so. The terrified expression never left his face as he did so, and Bickslow could only smirk. So he might know just how scary he can be sometimes, but that was only when he was trying. For all intents and purposes, he was not a scary guy in the slightest. The amount of times Lucy had already called him a giant teddy bear was a number far greater than Bickslow cared to admit.

One step, two steps, three steps, and so on. It was only when he reached the door did Bickslow finally close his eyes and let the man run out himself, only muttering something about cosplaying mages as he disappeared into the cool night.

He rubbed at his eyes as he let out a tired sigh and slouched back down in the booth seat then. He hated using his magic like that. It always gave him an instant headache, made him tired, and the eye strain from it was far worse from what it was from just looking at souls. The glow was the same, but the pain and magic were essentially very different. Still though, with that guy, it was worth it.

Looking back up after a moment, he only saw the teenagers looking at him in amazement before Rhett and Kai turned back around to rave about what they'd just seen. Bickslow didn't think it was amazing. Not in the slightest. If he hated looking at a person's soul, he hated actually being able to control a living and breathing human a whole lot more. He just hoped that Lucy wouldn't judge him too harshly for using his Figure Eyes on the man.

"Lucy," he said softly, just loud enough for her to hear and her alone. "You can open your eyes now."

She peeked beneath her spread fingers and down to the tired Seith mage with the small smirk, and she quickly dropped her hand to slide into the seat next to him. "Thank you," she whispered with a soft smile. She was truly grateful for Bickslow finding a way to get rid of the man. She couldn't help but think things would have gone a little differently if she'd handled it herself.

Namely, that main difference would be property damage.

"Anything for you, and any time, Cosplayer," Bickslow chuckled quietly. His arm went around her waist and pulled Lucy into his side as his lips brushed against her cheek, and he murmured, "The only one who gets to touch your ass is me."

And really, that was what mattered.

* * *

After Bickslow's stunt that ended with the café losing one of their most 'valued' customers (no matter how perverted and inappropriate he was, he was the highest tipper and the waitresses loved him), it was a surprise they didn't get kicked out. Bickslow was still banned for life once his shift was over, and walking out as the owner locked the doors at a little after ten o'clock, he was more than happy to walk away with a certain finger sticking up. Of course, Zeke just happened to flip him off before he turned and began to clean up the rest before he left his store.

The teenagers' bill had been paid right before they left at closing, like Bickslow had said he'd do, and he'd even told them they were welcome to stop by Fairy Tail some time. They were above sixteen, but Bickslow had still refused to serve them alcohol that night. Instead, he'd let them go on about how they could handle their liquor, which led to Bickslow saying they'd be passed out on the floor within ten minutes if they visited Fairy Tail. Of course, they'd taken it as a challenge and a promise of a drinking game.

If anything, they'd just wanted an excuse to go and see their new favourite maid and butler mage couple and see what it really was like in Fairy Tail. Of course, at the mention of being able to meet Laxus, Natsu, _and_ Mirajane, they'd declared that they would be there for the following weekend. Lucy found their excitement entertaining, and Bickslow would be lying if he said he didn't like them at least a little bit.

Along with the teenagers' rather large cheque, the man's had also been paid. By Bickslow, of course. Zeke had made all too sure of that one, because after all, it was his fault the man had left. Bickslow didn't have any problems with it though, and he'd just paid it with the tips he'd earned instead.

Lucy, not surprisingly, earned double, if not triple, what he had in tips, but he figured if he'd been wearing a short as hell dress and looked as good as her, he would have earned that much too. He still earned a fuck load though. Apparently girls were into the whole cosplay thing.

It was only when they were walking home together slowly (to Bickslow's home, actually, because his was a hell of a lot closer than Lucy's, and they were both dead on their feet) did Bickslow bring up just how many times he'd heard someone comment on Lucy's appearance, or just outright say that they wanted to ask her out, or worse, sleep with her. He'd counted, and in total, there had been one-hundred-and-forty-three males who had been far too interested in the blonde maid rather than their menus, and a mere eleven females in the same situation.

Of course, that was when Lucy had decided to complain about all of the girls fawning over the tall and mysterious butler of the day. She'd walked by Bickslow when he'd been serving tables filled with blushing and giggling girls far too many times, and almost each time, someone had been flirting with him. She loved the guy, immensely, but he had absolutely no idea when someone else was flirting with him and it was adorably entertaining. He didn't flirt. Not intentionally, anyway, as she'd realised.

It was that, or he just didn't care. But then again, why would he care? He had Lucy, after all, so he had no reason to care or even notice if someone was flirting with him. They could like him all they wanted, because nothing would change how he felt about Lucy. He loved the woman, a lot, and he always would. That was what he'd told Lucy, anyway, after he'd said jealousy was cute on her.

Well, he'd told her most of it, at least. He'd figured it had been too soon to tell her that he would always be in love with her.

When they got to Bickslow's building later, Lucy sighed as she tipped her head back and looked up to the dark sky. "Bicks, baby," she groaned. "I can't go on." She'd been wearing those god awful heels all day and her feet were absolutely killing her, and the thought of walking upstairs in them was a nightmare. As soon as the café had closed, Bickslow and Lucy hadn't even changed. All they'd wanted to do was get home and sleep. "Leave me here."

He chuckled as he backtracked a bit, and throwing the strap of the backpack (one he'd borrowed from Virgo after they'd left – bless the kinky maid spirit) with all of his clothes he'd turned up in over his other shoulder, he bent down just to pick Lucy up and pull her into his arms and against his chest. One arm went around her back, and the other her legs, and he smiled down at her when she dropped her head to rest on his shoulder with another tired sigh. "Don't worry. I've got ya."

"Uh-huh."

Eventually, they did actually make it up the stairs and up to the level Bickslow's apartment was on. Thankfully, he didn't live in a four-story apartment building. Only three, thank you very much. But it still took him a while to get up the stairs… And he only lived on the second floor.

His bag was dropped somewhere in the dark living room along with Lucy's, and as he walked along the short and silent hall and down to his bedroom, he fought the urge to close his eyes, just drop Lucy and fall back to the floor himself to all asleep right there. But it was just a few more steps. A few more steps, and he'd be on his bed, and he could rest.

As soon as Bickslow dropped her onto the bed (not so gently in his exhausted state, but Lucy didn't care in the slightest. Not when Bickslow's bed was like heaven and felt like a cloud), Lucy practically instantly curled up into a ball. Sort of. She managed to kick her heels off at some point as they walked down the hall, and she'd probably dropped the bonnet somewhere in town, but she still had the white elbow gloves, thigh-high stockings, and the black and white frilly dress with the matching apron.

Bickslow's head hit the pillow as soon as he kicked off his own shoes, and as soon as he did so, he really did feel like he could fall asleep. But… They were uncomfortable as all hell. He groaned when he realised he'd have to get up to get changed, because honestly, he just couldn't be bothered.

Of course, Lucy realised the same thing, so when he felt the mattress shifting ever so slightly, he opened his eyes again just to see the blonde beside him on her stomach and untying the apron. With his own sigh, he rolled onto his back beside her and began fumbling with the stupid tie he'd been in, and in silence, they went about undressing in the laziest and most awkward way possible, all because they couldn't be bothered moving too much.

By the time they were done, having taken far longer than they wished it had, Bickslow's bedroom floor was covered in a whole bunch of random articles of clothing he'd never expected. An apron was on one side with the dress Lucy had been wearing, and on the other, black dress pants, a vest, and a coat he was never going to wear again, because come morning, it would be getting burned. Along with the rest of it.

Well… Lucy's costume would live. Bickslow's would die a slow and painful death, and he'd watch the stiff material become ash and he'd laugh maniacally. And of course, his girlfriend would probably look at him like the maniac he was and he just wouldn't care.

So both tired, eyes closed, they found themselves tangled up somewhere towards the middle of the bed in just their undergarments, because neither of them had any intentions of leaving bed for the next twelve hours at least. They were still just a little proud of themselves for managing to get out of their ridiculous uniforms without getting up in the first place.

It was the little things, really.

"Lucy?" Bickslow mumbled into the pillow suddenly when his hand smoothed down her back and then her thigh. With the way they were laying with one of her slender legs hooked over him, it was very easy to do that.

"Mm-hmm?"

"Are you still wearing the tights?"

A lazy smile floated across her lips and a tired laugh escaped as his fingers hooked under the band at the top of them. It had been far too hard to get them off and it involved her moving too much, so she'd left them on. Of course, come morning she was going to look just a little odd in her white stockings and bright pink underwear. "I couldn't be bothered taking them off," she replied.

His hand went back up to her waist to pull her closer to him, and he chuckled quietly by her ear. He was so, _so_ tired, but he was also incredibly comfortable. No matter how comfortable he was though, he still needed to stay awake for just that little bit longer. No doubt he'd fall asleep within five minutes once he actually let himself, but until then, he had to fight to stay awake. "Nice, Cosplayer," he said quietly. After a pause where Lucy shifted ever so slightly, he continued, "But as much as I love you and loved seeing you in that outfit, we're never doing a job like that again."

"Don't have to tell me that."

"I still liked being able to spend the day with you though. Even though we didn't really get to do much _together_."

Lucy sighed. "I know, Bicks. Next time we'll find something where we can actually spend some time together."

"Or… Maybe we just skip the entire job thing and spend some actual time together," Bickslow said slowly. He did love that he was able to take that job with Lucy, despite how horrible it was. Sure, they hadn't really been able to spend that much time together, and that was the entire point of them taking the time to actually do something together, but it still hadn't quite worked.

Bickslow realised he didn't really _want_ to be doing jobs with Lucy. Sure, he'd do them with her occasionally, but he didn't want that to be the only way they could manage to spend time together between their schedules that just didn't seem to match up yet. It was all about finding a balance, and maybe, the only way to find a balance was to completely start over?

Sensing Lucy's confusion in the dark and silent room, Bickslow continued, "Like, maybe we just, say, take a month off from our teams and our usual jobs, and we spend it together. We wouldn't be constantly missing each other by like a day or something then, and we'd have more than just a few days together here and there."

It was a good idea, Lucy had to admit. The thought of taking an entire month off from taking jobs with her team was far too appealing, but she just couldn't do it. She had her rent to pay and she just couldn't afford to take that much time off. Her team had a horrible habit of getting their reward taken away from them almost every single time, and it was part of the reason she'd been going on so many jobs in the last couple of months and especially the last few weeks. She'd had her rent due just the week before, and she'd needed the money to pay it.

"I'd love to do that, but I can't," she sighed. She almost felt guilty saying the words, and it almost outweighed how tired she felt right then. "You know I hate how the last several weeks have been with us, and I really would love to take a month, or even just a few weeks off and spend it with you, but I have my rent and I need to take jobs."

"It's always about the rent," Bickslow groaned. She'd complained about her team and her rent on multiple occasions, and in the few months they'd been together, he'd offered to pay it… Multiple times, actually. He didn't care or even mind, but Lucy did. "I told you I'd pay it—"

"But I don't want you to."

"Then just move in with me," he said quickly. The words had left his mouth before his brain had finished processing it. Slowly then, he continued, "You wouldn't have your rent to constantly worry about then, and you could take a month off and spend it with me."

Lucy's eyes shot open suddenly, and in the dim room, she could make out that Bickslow's eyes were open too and he was looking back at her. "M-Move in… Together?" she whispered. It had just come out of nowhere and Lucy truly hadn't expected in the slightest. Especially not right then.

It wasn't that she was opposed to it. Oh no. She loved the idea of moving in with Bickslow, either there or her place (though it was highly unlikely to be her place, and she'd always known that just because it was much smaller), or someplace new. She'd be able to spend more time with Bickslow, and they wouldn't live on near opposite sides of the town…

If anything, it would be a step forward in their relationship. They hadn't even discussed the possibility of moving in together, but she wanted to. And obviously, Bickslow wanted her to.

"Well, yeah," he answered. "I mean, I know we haven't really been together all that long, but it's not exactly like we've had the most conventional of relationships or anything… Not that I'd really know what a conventional relationship is or anything… But we could. If you wanted to, that is. And it wouldn't be just because of your rent or anything."

"You know I wouldn't let you pay it all if I did move in though."

Bickslow rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. We can sort out all that later if you agree," he said dismissively, though he couldn't keep the smile off his face. "But if we did live together, it would be easier for us to spend time together. Like, when you get back from jobs or when I get back from jobs, we'd always just be able to come back here. Or wherever really, if you wanted to move somewhere else. I don't want to say it would be convenient, but it would be."

"I quite like your apartment."

"Okay, so… You could move in here, and then we'd be able to spend a whole lot more time together, and…"

"And, I'd be able to take a month off from jobs," she finished. She knew it was coming, and she still loved the idea.

Bickslow nodded. "Exactly, because I paid my rent yesterday morning, remember? So it's covered for the next month. Which means you and I would have the next month to do absolutely nothing." Of course, he wasn't exactly going to tell her that the rent would always be covered as long as she was living with him. Not yet, anyway. They could sort all of that out later.

Lucy hummed in thought for a moment as she closed her eyes again. Regardless of how long they'd been together, Lucy loved the idea of moving in with Bickslow. It was a step in a great direction for them as a couple, and she absolutely adored the thought of being able to spend even more time with Bickslow. She couldn't think of anything better than to move in with her lovable teddy bear of a boyfriend, and then spend the next month doing no jobs and just spending some solid, quality time with him.

But of course, they'd still have a lot of things to sort out. Like the rent, of course. She wasn't going to let Bickslow think she would live with him and not pay half of it. They weren't going to sort that out then, because in all honesty, it was far too late to do that and they weren't exactly in the right minds for a serious discussion about it all right then.

With a smile on her lips as she settled herself against the pillows and Bickslow, she only murmured, "Well, we'll sort out the details in the morning."

Bickslow knew it was her way of saying yes to moving in with him, and if he'd had the energy to do so, he would have jumped or something just because he was so excited and happy. His girlfriend would be moving in with him! And they'd be living in the same house! Oh, he loved that. And then being able to curl up together every night for the next month. He loved that even more.

He was sure he was going to actually fall asleep with a smile on his face though, and he didn't even care. All he could think about was how much more fun their Sundays would be if they had the possibility of sharing a whole lot more of them.

* * *

 **So... Bix is a dork, as we all know, and I can't help myself sometimes. It's fun having him come out of his shell, and there'll definitely be some more of that in the last few chapters.**

 **If anyone has watched Black Butler, Bickslow's outfit was more or less supposed to be Sebastian. And, as far as the cosplay café job goes, I got that idea from a Fairy Tail RP forum somewhere and it was too good not to use (If I had the link, I'd post it, but I can't find it anymore).**

 **But still, this story did get pushed back as I worked on some others and plotted out some of my other ones, and I do apologise. I will do my best to get this finished shortly though, and as usual, I apologise for any mistakes. I'm never able to catch them all...**

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**


	13. (V) Truth - Part 1

**Hi everyone! I was originally going to have this up after Valentine's Day since this chapter was going to be incredibly long and was going to take a little while longer to get finished, and I'd have a one-shot up before then anyway. But, I decided to split these chapters up. It works a little better this way, I think, so hopefully I'll have part two of this chapter up next week or in the next few days once it's all finished. The prompt doesn't really tie in with this at all, and not much with the second part, but oh well... I always knew the prompts wouldn't be very accurate. :P**

 **Anyway. Thank you all so much for the reviews on the last chapter! I can tell you now, that I always planned on having the teenagers coming back again, so you can look forward to them making an appearance again before this story ends.**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 11: VENDETTA**_  
 _ **TRUTH - PART 1**_

* * *

It was a Sunday, and as per Bickslow's house rules went, Sundays were spent without clothes. Or at least, _mostly_ without clothes. They'd quickly realised by the end of the first Sunday of their month of no jobs that they weren't productive in the slightest if absolutely zero clothes were worn, and with them constantly going back and forth between Bickslow's apartment and Lucy's apartment to pack up all of her things, they needed to be just a little productive.

With their month completely dedicated to each other nearly over though, Lucy was all moved in. _Their_ place was a mess, with piles of boxes still waiting to be sorted out and given a home, but they were getting there slowly. They'd each had to thin out their collections of random junk they were attached to, and for Lucy, that meant a lot of clothes that she hadn't worn in years anyway. Helping Bickslow thin out his own wardrobe though… Well, Lucy had enjoyed that, because she'd eventually managed to move his butler costume from the job at the café over to the 'keep' pile without him noticing. Of course, he'd noticed just what his sneaky girlfriend had done when he'd been putting it all back and come across something he was sure he had put in the 'to burn' pile.

Telling Team Natsu that they were moving in together proved to be the most entertaining part for Bickslow though, because seeing Natsu disappointed over not being able to sleep at Lucy's anymore and steal her food was amazing. If it was one thing he was glad about, it was that his girlfriend's best friend wasn't able to sneak into her bed any more. No, the only person she was going to be able to sleep next to was Bickslow himself, and for the past few weeks, he'd thoroughly enjoyed that.

But with their month nearly over, they were still finding places for all of Lucy's things that had made the journey with her to Bickslow's apartment. On this particular morning, it was the books that needed sorting out since that's what most of the boxes in their living area were filled with, so Lucy stood in front of the bookcase by the hall in just her striped singlet and underwear, more or less known as her pyjamas as of late. While Lucy took all of Bickslow's books and odd trinkets down from each shelf, deciding to dust before going through each box to find out what they had duplicates of, Bickslow was too busy in the kitchen just on the other side and getting something ready for breakfast, wearing, of course, just as little clothing.

Because it was a Sunday.

Lucy only smiled down at the small photo frame with a much younger version of Bickslow and what she'd always assumed to be his parents. She could remember the first time she'd seen it on the first day she'd come over to spend the day with Bickslow, and then all the other times she'd just seen it sitting on the shelves with the rest of his things. But as she looked at the smiling face of the boy in the picture, Lucy only realised that she still knew absolutely nothing about Bickslow's family. Or even his past, really. He'd only ever talked about his life once he'd joined the guild and how things were with his team. Anything before that, he'd only brought up once or twice, and it had only ever been that he'd lost too many people. The rest was still a mystery to Lucy.

"Hey, Bicks?"

He looked up just as he finished plating up their breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, just because it was simple and he didn't feel like doing anything else because it was a lazy day. "Yeah?"

"How come you never talk about your family?" she asked, sitting herself down at the small dining table just as Bickslow placed them down with knives and forks, and Lucy placed the photo down just next to her on the table. Seeing his face drop almost instantly upon asking about his family only had Lucy realising that there must be a very good reason for not bringing it up, and it only made her worry about him more than she already did.

Getting up from her chair opposite Bickslow at the small table, she instead sat herself down on the side just next to him and slipped her hand into his to squeeze it gently. He didn't see the smile she gave him as he looked down to their hands on their table, only seeing the leather bracelets he always wore around his wrist to draw the attention away from the long scar he'd had for close to ten years. Lucy knew it was there, but he'd never told her just how he'd got it, just that it had been a stupid accident and it was nothing. But it wasn't just nothing, but to Lucy, it was, because he didn't want her to know. Not just yet, at least. "They're just not worth talking about," he mumbled.

"I just meant that we've been together for what, nearly five months now?" Lucy continued as gently as possible, doing her best to ease Bickslow's obvious discomfort over the topic she'd brought up. "And I've just never heard anything about your parents, only about Caspian, but that's okay."

Was it okay? Bickslow didn't really think it was. She'd opened herself up to him so much, even before they were together, but no matter how much Bickslow did trust her, there were still big and important things that he hadn't told her. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her about his past before the guild though, because he did, and he wanted to do so a lot because that was what she deserved. It wasn't fair that he got to keep things from himself, not after all they'd been through already. He was supposed to be forgetting about everything and letting it all go, letting people in and learning how to trust everyone, not… Keeping everything that had happened bottled up inside him like he always had.

That just wasn't healthy, and it was the last thing he needed. He was still getting better, sure, and having Lucy move in and having been able to spend the last few weeks with her had helped him get closer to being just that one person and not having two different sides, but he still knew it wasn't something that was going to be easy. That didn't worry Bickslow though, and it never would. He wanted and needed to do that for Lucy, and for her, he would do anything, no matter how hard it was. He'd walk through a burning hell if it came down to it.

But his past… His past was hard, and even just thinking about telling Lucy about all of it and letting her see why he had closed himself off so much was making Bickslow worry. He wasn't worried about somehow driving Lucy away, but he was worried about what all of it would make her think of him.

He was scared of it, and Lucy knew that. She knew Bickslow, even if they hadn't been together for very long, or even friends for much longer before being together as a couple. She knew his moods and she knew how he was always feeling, because he let her see it. And right then, Lucy knew that she'd reached a new boundary that he wasn't quite ready to cross yet, and that was okay. She could wait, and she would always wait. "It really doesn't matter though," Lucy insisted as she pulled her hand from the still silent Seith mage's, and reached for the photo frame on the opposite side of the table with another soft smile. "It was just something I thought about when I saw this, since I always assumed it's your parents since you look a little like them."

Bickslow gently took the frame from her hands and frowned down at it. "Yeah, that's them." Just because he wasn't ready to talk about why he'd never brought them up and then just everything else in general, it didn't mean he couldn't acknowledge an old photo.

Everything had a starting point, anyway, and opening up to Lucy about his family and his past had to begin with Bickslow accepting that it needed to happen eventually. This was his starting point.

"You look happy there."

 _Happy?_ He looked it, but Bickslow remembered the day it was taken. He wasn't happy. He'd never really been happy, not even when he'd been fourteen. Even back then, his walls had been going up, and he'd always been good at hiding how he felt. All he'd ever done was hide behind a mask. Until Lucy came along, anyway. "Yeah, I suppose so." Sighing, he only turned the frame in his hands to place it face down on the table and picked up his fork once again. "But I kind of don't want to talk about dead people over breakfast, if you don't mind."

* * *

By the last day of their month off from jobs, Lucy was completely and officially moved in. Her books were on the shelves, her clothes were in the drawers and the wardrobe, more than just a toothbrush of hers was in the bathroom – hell, she'd basically taken over it, pink towels and all, not that Bickslow cared – and everything else she'd brought with her had been given a home, even if it had involved almost completely rearranging the living room. Whether it be her desk under a window and next to where their Christmas tree would go in a corner (something Lucy had insisted on _them_ having, even if it was more than six months away), her vanity in the bedroom, or in boxes in the spare room. There were still some things that they hadn't been able to find places for, and so until they figured out what to do with all of the things that they'd decided to donate or sell (or burn), they were sitting in the spare room.

It wasn't exactly like it was being used for anything anyway, so being used to store boxes full of old clothes they'd decided to donate, books they had multiples of, or spare sets of glasses or plates all belonged in the spare room.

It had only been a few days since Lucy had asked why Bickslow had never brought up his family, and ever since that morning, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. Lucy hadn't mentioned anything about parents or his family or anything since that morning, because she'd quickly figured out it was a topic that he hated and made him uncomfortable, even if it had only been an incredibly short conversation.

Bickslow wanted to tell her his past, because that was what was fair. But… He was still scared. Part of him was realising he would always be scared though, because opening up about his past and his family was something that was going to be incredibly hard for him. Bickslow could remember how much it had scared him to tell Lucy how he felt about her and why it had been so difficult to even be her friend, but opening up then had been so, _so_ worth it.

He was beginning to accept that maybe, he'd never really be ready to tell Lucy about just what had happened before he'd joined the guild. He hadn't been ready to tell Lucy how he felt either, but he'd had to because he'd screwed up things so epically. But even if Bickslow was realising no matter how scared he was and that he might never be ready to go back to that part of his life, he knew he had to do it. Not right then, but… Soon.

Bickslow knew for certain that he wasn't going to tell her about anything until she'd met Caspian. His uncle had pretty much always been more of a family to him than his parents had been, and considering he was the only living member of his family left, he wanted Lucy to meet him. Hell, he wanted Caspian to meet Lucy, because Bickslow knew he'd like her.

He already knew he wanted to be with Lucy for a long time, or at least for as long as she would love him back, and he'd known that for a long time. It was why he was wanting to get better and tell her everything no matter how hard it was. He didn't really want to be the broken guy he'd always been any longer, because to him, that just wasn't someone who Lucy would want to be with.

He wanted her to be his family. He didn't care about the possibility of getting married, or even having kids if that was what she wanted, and if he had to be perfectly honest, it was something he didn't want to ever think about. He just wanted Lucy. He would always be happy with her, and it had taken Bickslow so long to get to a point where he was actually happy that he didn't even care if it made him feel just a little bit selfish.

But he loved her, and he did far too much, like he always would. You were always supposed to take your girlfriend home to meet the parents at some point, right? Well, his were gone, just like Lucy's, and even if they had been alive then, he didn't think he'd have introduced them to Lucy. But to Caspian… Caspian he would, and that was what he wanted to do.

After that, he could maybe begin to start thinking about telling Lucy the rest of what she deserved to know about him. He knew so much about her already, so he had to prove he trusted her. Telling her about everything would do that, and he would do it eventually.

So getting back home on the last day of their month off from jobs, he closed and locked the door behind him and looked around the dark living area, the only light coming in from the windows on the back wall and casting everything in an orange glow with the setting sun. He'd only been out to run a few errands he'd been putting off over the course of the month, but he was glad to be home. Even if he'd only been out for a few hours, and over the course of the last month, they'd really rarely gone anywhere without the other, Bickslow looked forward to coming home a lot more now that Lucy was moved in. It wasn't as boring, and he was still getting used to seeing her things everywhere, but he loved it. It was nice. _She_ was his home, and he'd made his apartment actually feel like a proper home.

Making his way down the hall with the paper bag full of what he'd come to learn was Lucy's comfort and guilty indulgence food, he wasn't really all that surprised to find the blonde curled up on the bed with the pillows scattered around her along with the babies, hot water bottle off to the side, and a book in her hand. It was exactly like he'd left her a few hours earlier, actually.

"Have you even moved at all?"

Lucy hummed in thought for a moment as she turned the page. "Maybe… Once or twice."

 _So she stays in bed all day when it's_ that _time… Note taken._ "So I take it you haven't eaten dinner yet?" he asked.

Lucy sighed and shook her head as she placed her bookmark between the pages in her book and placed it on the nightstand, and turned in the bed until she was sitting up with her pillows against the headboard. Her eyes lit up as she looked to the large paper bag being held in one of Bickslow's hands, complete with her favourite diner's logo – Eight-Island, of course – on the front of it. "For me?"

"Of course."

She reached out for the bag and almost snatched it from Bickslow's hand once it was within her reach, and she pulled it into her lap to open it up as her borderline perfect boyfriend only turned for the dresser at the foot of the bed by the open door to the hall. Despite going most of the day being curled up in bed, reading, and cursing her entire existence and only wanting dark chocolate (something she had only moaned to Bickslow about earlier in the afternoon over there being none in the apartment whatsoever), she was absolutely starving then. She'd been waiting for Bickslow to get home though, just because he was a far better cook than she was (something he disagreed with, even though she knew damn well that he was lying and he hated her cooking, but that was okay) and he'd no doubt make something amazing for dinner, like he always did.

But for Bickslow to come home with her favourite comfort food, it was absolutely perfect, and it was truly just what she needed right then. "Did you…" She quickly glanced up from the bag to Bickslow changing out of his shirt and shorts and no doubt into something more comfortable to get into bed with. "Did you by any chance get chicken nuggets?" She adored them, and she really, _really_ hoped that Bickslow knew that.

"Uh-huh. And a fuck load of fries. And a million sauce packets."

 _Oh, he knows me so well…_ Slowly pulling everything from the bag and laying it all down on the bed or on the nightstand on her side (and of course, getting a mouthful of fries in the process), she picked up one of the paper wrapped burgers and began to open it curiously. She knew it was a long shot that Bickslow would have gotten her double cheeseburger exactly how she liked it, but she could only hope. "And… Did you maybe get mine with—"

"Extra _extra_ mayo, extra mustard and cheese, and no pickles," Bickslow recited as he pulled the loose shorts on, then a plain shirt. "I remember." And he did remember. Granted, of the grand total of two times he'd been in the same town when it had been _that_ time for Lucy, what her go-to comfort foods were had only been brought up once, because he'd had to go and get them for her, and that had been at the same time she'd thought she could have been pregnant but wasn't actually (thankfully).

Double cheeseburger with extra _extra_ mayo, extra mustard and cheese with no pickles. Extra large fries, literally the largest amount of chicken nuggets that was available to buy in any pack, and a whole lot of dipping sauces. He remembered. He remembered everything about Lucy.

"Have I ever told you that I love you?" She felt like she was in heaven, looking down to all of the food that was laid out around her on the bed, despite the havoc her body was wreaking on her from the inside.

Bickslow's mouth split into a wide grin as he climbed into bed beside her with the lacrima-vision remote in his hand. "You might have a few times."

"Well, I think I need to say it a bit more then, because you're my favourite person right now and I love you too much," Lucy laughed quietly, and turning slightly, she lifted her head to quickly press a kiss to his cheek before making herself comfortable again and began sorting out what was hers and what was Bickslow's of all the food in front of her.

"There's no such thing as too much." And with Lucy, Bickslow really didn't think there was. He was still entirely convinced he wouldn't ever stop loving her, and he was also convinced he would never get sick of hearing or even knowing that Lucy loved him. And it was because Bickslow loved Lucy too much that he was going to work hard to really become a better person, and in Bickslow's mind, that involved letting her in that last little bit.

Or at least, he would do so slowly.

Clearing his throat, Bickslow slowly began to unwrap his own burger (that thankfully wasn't anywhere near as modified as Lucy's was, but that didn't matter) as he simultaneously made himself comfortable on the bed beside Lucy. "So I was thinking…" he began slowly and quietly.

She swallowed what she had in her mouth, then glanced to Bickslow. "You were thinking…"

"I was thinking," Bickslow said again. _It's not hard, man. Just say it._ "That we could go to Akane Beach again…?"

"Oh."

Bickslow grimaced at the reaction. That… Was not what he'd expected. Just one word. That was all she'd sad. It was all she'd needed to say for Bickslow to know she wasn't interested though, and that honestly hurt. He hadn't told her just why he thought they could take another trip back to Akane Beach, but it was obvious she didn't want to go anyway.

He looked away slightly as he reached for the remote again. "It was just a thought," he mumbled. "If you don't want to go, we don't have to. It doesn't matter." Maybe they weren't ready for an actual vacation together, as a couple?

"No, no. I never said I didn't want to go," Lucy replied quickly. "I just didn't expect you to bring up a vacation out of the blue."

"Oh… Well… I mean, I just thought it would be nice to go back for a few days or a week or something. You know, you could meet Cas, and we could go do some tourist-y things if you wanted to… But it doesn't really matter if you don't want to. We can just say here, or we could go another time or something."

Lucy smiled at the blushing Seith mage beside her. She had wanted to meet Bickslow's uncle in Akane Beach since he'd given her the necklace on Christmas, but she'd never brought it up, and especially not in the last few days knowing that his family was a subject that was not ready to be touched. And that was fine with Lucy. She'd guessed that his past hadn't been easy, and that had been long before she'd asked why he'd never mentioned anything about them.

But if he was suggesting that they go back so she could meet his uncle – who from what she had gathered, was the only actual member of his family he talked to at all, or at least the only one alive – then that had to mean something, right? She loved the idea, and she absolutely loved being able to watch Bickslow grow as a person. Even compared to when they'd gotten together at Christmas, just nearly five months earlier, he was a different person.

But he was a better person, and Lucy still loved him as much as she did then. If not more so.

"Nope. I want to go," she said happily.

Bickslow couldn't keep the smile off his face as he finally turned back to Lucy. "You… You do?"

"Of course I do." Lucy could only giggle quietly at the look of utter surprise and excitement suddenly washing over her boyfriend's face. _Gosh, he's so cute when he gets like that._ If she could sit up to hug him, she would have. But… She'd probably end up spilling her fries and nuggets everywhere over the bed, and right then, not even Bickslow was worth that happening. "I'd love to go, and I'd love to meet your uncle, Bicks. When were you thinking we could go?"

"Oh. Well… I was thinking maybe towards the end of next week? So you know, if you wanted to, you'd have time to take a job or something before that since it's been a while."

"That sounds perfect!"

"You think?" When she nodded, the smile he loved on her lips once again, it was Bickslow's turn to lean down and kiss her temple. Bickslow had really hoped she would want to go, because even just talking about going with her had made him surprisingly incredibly excited about it. A week away at some tropical resort with his girlfriend? Yeah, it was impossible for Bickslow not to be excited by just the thought of it, even if it really mostly was because he wanted her to meet his uncle. "Are you sure? I mean, we could wait until next month until it's actually summer since we have just had an entire month off from doing any jobs."

"Nope. Next week really is perfect," Lucy insisted with a quiet laugh again. "To be perfectly honest, I don't think I'm quite ready to go back to jobs and missions and all anyway. It's just been so peaceful taking time off and I really don't miss not going out every week and coming back with a new bruise or a hundred cuts or anything." The blonde sighed as she only nestled herself in against Bickslow's side, still leaning against the pillows as she fiddled with the paper wrapped around her burger. Turning to look up to the grinning Seith mage with her own smirk, she asked, "Do you think it's too soon to retire?"

Bickslow let out a bark of laughter. Even if he really did understand the love for how peaceful their last month off had been (and oh, had it been so worth it and deserved) and that he would love to spend most days in bed with his girlfriend and eating junk food, he really didn't think it was time to retire from the guild life just yet. "Yeah, I think it might be, Lucy. Maybe after you're twenty-one though," he joked along with her as he barely focused on the screen, absent-mindedly trying to figure out which episode of the show they'd been watching recently they were up to. "After your birthday, we can both retire and then we'll leave Fairy Tail, travel the world together and live happily ever after."

"The princess and her doctor in shining armour, riding off into the sunset together. I think I like that. Hey, I think I might write a story about that!"

"You should." And even if he'd managed to convince Lucy to let him read everything she'd written once they'd started dating, it would still be another story he would read and love. Literally everything that could come out of that brilliant mind of hers he would love, no matter how insane it was. "But, anyway. What episode are we up to again?"

Lucy hummed in thought as she looked back down and to the screen at the foot of the bed on the chest of drawers. "I think it was episode three of season five?" she mumbled, taking another bite of what she was sure was the best food in that universe.

So selecting the episode and then placing the remote back on the nightstand beside him, Bickslow settled himself in the bed again next to Lucy. That was where he was happiest, and sitting in bed on a Wednesday evening, eating fast food and watching _Sex and the City_ was quite literally the only thing he wanted to be doing right then. How Lucy had managed to get him so addicted to the show in the first place was still beyond him, but it didn't matter in the slightest.

* * *

"Are you still trying to figure out what you apparently forgot to pack?" Bickslow turned to Lucy again as they made their way up to the reception desk in the hotel in Akane Beach. All morning, right from the moment they'd left the apartment and headed towards the train station, she'd been worrying about what it was she'd forgotten to put in her bags.

Bickslow was sure that she would have begun unpacking them when they were on the train to methodically go through each item if he hadn't stopped her.

"Yes," she mumbled. Lucy was sure she'd forgotten something. Just what it was, she had no idea, because she'd been running through literally every item she could think of all morning. She was really just waiting for the moment where she would go to grab whatever it was she had forgotten, and it wouldn't be in her bag.

And yeah, she was probably going to rub it in Bickslow's face, because he was so set on her having not actually forgotten something.

"I doubt you did," Bickslow said, only making Lucy think that getting her satisfaction later would be so, so worth it. "You're just being paranoid."

"No I'm not. I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting!"

He rolled his eyes right before he went up to the smiling receptionist, and only after giving the man the name that their room booking would be under, he turned back to Lucy with a smirk and said, "So what if you did? This is our holiday, remember? So why don't you just stop worrying about something you might have forgotten and just enjoy yourself, okay?" Knowing his girlfriend, she really would spend the next seven days and six nights worrying incessantly and trying to figure out just what she'd supposedly left behind. He didn't want her doing that, because in all honesty, it would ruin their little vacation.

Only grumbling silently to herself because she knew Bickslow had a point, she folded her arms and waited for the receptionist to finish checking them in to the hotel.

"The honeymoon suite is available for the nights you'll be staying with us, sir. Would you like to upgrade your room?"

Bickslow's face dropped as he looked back to the man at the desk, and he heard the unmistakeable snicker of his girlfriend beside him. "Are you serious?" What were the fucking chances that he'd get asked if he wanted to upgrade his room _again_? It was almost like the hotel hated him or something.

The man nodded. "We had a cancellation early this morning so the room is available."

The Seith mage turned to glare at his girlfriend, her hand over her mouth to smother some of what he was realising was uncontrollable giggles. _Of course she finds it funny._ Even if Bickslow had quickly gone so far past being annoyed with the hotel (it was decided they were never coming back to that resort again), he just couldn't be bothered with the entire hotel room situation. He was tired, having been woken up at a little after six a.m. to the sound of Lucy scurrying about and repacking everything in her bag to make sure she had everything; hungry, because he'd been made to go pick up her prescription at the pharmacy because she apparently would forget to do it on their way back home once they were back in Magnolia (and she apparently would need it, and once he saw what it was, he realised having to rush around town to pick up a few of her other last minute things wasn't so bad) so he'd missed breakfast; and, he had a headache because the people sitting next to them on the two-hour train ride had had a screaming infant with them. If he didn't have a number of other reasons for not really ever wanting kids, having to put up with the most annoying brat of a child screaming and crying for two straight hours was enough to make him hate them.

But seriously, Bickslow could just not be bothered and with a sigh, he only turned back to the patient receptionist and said, "Sure. Go ahead. Upgrade the damn room."

The words only had Lucy letting out a quiet yelp of surprise before she was close to being on the floor from laughing too much. It was, actually, beginning to draw attention to them, but she just didn't care. The last thing she had expected Bickslow to do was actually upgrade the room to the honeymoon suite, but she was so strangely glad and excited over the fact that he had. She'd honestly been on the verge of _daring_ him to do it, just because she had seen how much it had annoyed him that he had once again be asked if he was interested in the suite.

By the time they were out of the lobby and on their way to the top floor where all the more extravagant rooms were (including the three honeymoon suites the resort had, each of them apparently different to each other), Lucy could not stop laughing. Literally. She'd only been nudged (gently) by Bickslow a few times, had her nose pinched for just a few seconds because Bickslow had hoped her not being able to breathe would get her to shut up, and been given some very odd glances by everyone they walked past in the various halls.

Bickslow had just given up. Lucy was lost to the world. Granted, she was still walking and following him to their new room on the top floor, but she wasn't really paying attention to anything. She was too busy laughing her ass off to do that. If he was perfectly honest though, he didn't mind all that much anyway. He didn't quite understand just why she found it all so entertaining, but by the time they did reach the door to their room, he hadn't exactly been able to keep his own laughter at bay much. Her laugh, like her joy, was contagious, and it was just one of the probable millions of things he loved about her.

Walking into the spacious room with the quieting blonde just before him, his jaw almost hit the ground. "Holy fucking shit," he breathed, looking around at everything in the room. "This room is amazing." They hadn't even closed the door behind them yet, and Bickslow was sure he could spend the rest of his life in that room and he'd be comfortable and happy.

Well, if he had Lucy with him too, he would be.

But judging by his girlfriend's silence as he made his way past her and towards the curtains covering the entire wall facing the ocean, she was just as impressed as he was. And oh, was Bickslow glad that he'd upgraded the room when he pushed the curtains wide open. The entire wall was a sliding glass door that opened up onto the balcony, and with the curtains and doors open, it gave perfect and unobstructed views of the beach and ocean below.

Turning and stepping up the single step back into the room, he made his way over to the large canopy bed that Lucy was already sprawled out on in the centre of the room that faced the beach, and fell forward onto it with an incredibly happy sigh. "Oh, we are so coming back here again." It almost came out as a moan, that's how much he loved the bed. He was in heaven. "I feel like I'm on a cloud right now," he mumbled into the soft comforter, the shade of turquoise it was in the same as all of the accents in the room – the pillows on the small lounge at the foot of the bed and also facing the ocean, the lampshades on either side of the bed, the art on the walls. Hell, Lucy had already figured out they matched the candles sitting around the spa bath just on the opposite side of the divider their bed was up against.

"Mm-hmm. Definitely coming back again," Lucy said slowly. All laughter was gone by then, along with all thoughts of just what it was she'd forgotten to pack. She just wanted to stay on that amazingly comfortable bed all day with Bickslow. It was honestly far too tempting. But then, with the comfort the bed was offering her, her mouth was opening of its own accord to say, "We'll come back here for our actual honeymoon."

Bickslow's own response came with even less thought going into it, not caring as he kept his eyes closed and only slowly pulled himself up and towards Lucy to pull her into his side. "Not even. This room is amazing, but we'd totally go somewhere nicer for that." It was only once they'd actually left his mouth did Bickslow realise just what he'd said and what it even meant. His eyes shot open right as Lucy's did, and he was sure he looked just as shocked and slightly embarrassed as she did. Though… It was probably a whole lot cuter on her.

He'd really just said that they would, in fact, get married one day. And granted, Lucy had said the same thing, but that didn't really make him feel any better about what had been said in the first place. It wasn't as if he didn't mean it, because Bickslow was realising he did, even if he hadn't really thought that much about whether or not they ever would get married or anything like that. He still didn't exactly care if they did, because all he really cared about was being with Lucy. The rest could all be sorted out.

But right then, he was thinking about it. How could he not though? They'd just unintentionally brought up their future honeymoon. It wasn't a hypothetical situation either, and Bickslow knew that. That wasn't what Lucy had meant. She hadn't said that they _could_ go back there _if_ they ever were to get married and go on a honeymoon. She'd said that they _would_. And he'd only said they would go some place different.

The way they both saw it though, was that they'd both thought about actually being together in the long run to some extent, and enough that marriage was a very real and eventual possibility. Lucy knew it, Bickslow knew it… But were they actually going to talk about that? Hell no. That was a talk they both knew was way too soon for them to actually be having.

So when the blushing blonde right in front of him was the one brave enough to break the silence, Bickslow couldn't help but let out half a laugh… Along with the breath he'd been holding. "So did you want to go out for lunch, or order room service?" Lucy asked with her own smile. She knew that they weren't talking about it, and that was okay. She could be happy internally.

"Room service for sure," Bickslow answered. "I'm way too comfortable to be getting up right now though, so you'll have to do the honours of getting the menus because I don't actually know where they are either, so I can't put souls in them."

She rolled her eyes with a quiet chuckle as she pulled herself free from Bickslow, and only after pulling one of the many pillows from the head of the bed and throwing it at the Seith mage, she reluctantly stood, already missing the comfort of the best mattress in the entire world. "You're lazy, Bicks."

He rolled onto his back and turned to grin at her again, only spreading his arms and legs out on the soft fabric of the comforter. "Nope. Comfortable."

"L-A-Z-Y."

"C-O—'Kay. Stop with the pillows already. I'm just a _little_ lazy. But we'll go out for dinner. I promise."

"Hmm, okay." She sat down on the edge of the bed then leant down on an elbow so Bickslow could read the menu with her, with him slowly sitting up to lean on his own elbows. "But can we go back to that one on the beach?"

He looked away from what he realised was the dessert list and to Lucy with an eyebrow raised, and laughing quietly, he asked, "You do realise we're at Akane _Beach_ , right? Practically every restaurant here is on the beach."

She only sat up slightly to not-so gently poke the side of his head with her finger. "Shut up," she mumbled. "You knew what I meant."

"We can go there every night we're here if that's what you really want," Bickslow said softly once the Celestial mage was no longer pouting. Picking up the menu she'd dropped on his stomach, he turned his attention back to that and hummed in thought. He hadn't ordered any room service the last time he'd been there, and neither had Lucy since they'd gone out to any of the various cafés and restaurants that were in the small beach town. He just had no idea what to order, because he didn't know what was good and what wasn't. There were just too many choices for Bickslow to decide any time soon though, that was for sure. "I hope the food here is good though."

* * *

It took quite a bit of convincing on Lucy's behalf to get Bickslow to leave their room that evening. After their lunch, Bickslow hadn't really wanted to do much of anything, other than stay in the oversized and far too comfortable bed. And for a while, Lucy had agreed, because it really was the most comfortable thing in the entire world, and she could lie there and stare out at the horizon for a while… But there was only so much she could take of that at any one time.

It had taken a lot of convincing, compromising and making promises (that were a given anyway, but whatever), but she had done it eventually. It didn't help that there was really only so much whining Bickslow could deal with before it made him actually get out of bed and find some more clothes. He loved her, but sometimes, Lucy would make a point of trying her best to annoy him, and she was very, _very_ good at it.

So eventually, they did manage to make their way out of the room and then the hotel, and once they realised that their room had been much, _much_ cooler than it was outside (even with the curtains and the doors to the balcony wide open, the room was still much more bearable), they almost wanted to really stay inside all day. But they couldn't do that. They had places to be.

Making their way into the casino, Bickslow led Lucy through the main game floor of Akane Beach's famous casino, and up to the second floor where the high-end stores were. Lucy looked up from where she had been looking over the railing and to the bustling casino floor, and to the numerous stores that wrapped around the second and third floors of the large building. Some, fancy cafés where no doubt everything was severely over-priced. Others, clothing stores or gift shops, while some, were jewellery stores. Bickslow pulled her away from the railing and over towards the store fronts when he saw his uncle's in sight, the elegant banner with the black background and gold script hanging over the walkways and in line with the small store.

When they walked into the dim room filled with glass cabinets, Caspian was nowhere to be found at the front of the store, but instead there was just a young couple looking at the glass display cabinet that doubled as the front counter at the back of the room.

"Are you sure he's here?" Lucy asked Bickslow quietly as he followed her around the store, watching as she looked down to each cabinet and display case in the small room.

He nodded. "Yeah. He's probably just at the back of the store," he answered just as quietly, only glancing to the couple in the corner. "I'll go see if I can find him." _No doubt avoiding those two happy morons ring shopping._ They'd been in the store for all of a minute and he'd already figured out that they were, in fact, looking at rings. Engagement rings, most likely, because Bickslow knew from the last time he was there that it was where they were kept. In the space of a minute, he'd already learned that the girl's boyfriend obviously had poor taste in rings, because everything he had pointed to in the case, she had only shaken her head at and pointed to a different one.

Leaving Lucy alone in the store, but she was quite content with looking at the admittedly odd though incredibly beautiful wares anyway so Bickslow didn't worry about her, he headed past the couple and the longer display cabinet just in front of the wall, and through the curtains that separated the shop and his uncle's small workshop and office. Seeing his uncle hunched over his crowded workbench covered in various rings and chains of varying materials and diamonds and jewels of all colours and sizes, a wide grin split Bickslow's mouth as he folded his arms and leant against the wall just beside it. The older man was far too enthralled in what he was doing to notice his nephew standing just in front of him.

"You know, when you own a business, you're generally supposed to be out there and being helpful to your customers, not hiding in the back all the time," Bickslow chuckled.

Caspian looked up and turned at the voice, and he blinked at the grinning Seith mage as he removed his glasses and placed them down on the bench, along with the thin chain he'd been checking. "Well this is certainly a surprise," he mumbled, a slow smile forming as he stood up from the chair. "I wasn't expecting you back for _at least_ another six months, Bicks."

He feigned disappointment as he pushed off from the wall. "I thought you'd be glad to see me," Bickslow mumbled.

"You know I am, you idiot," Caspian chuckled lightly. "But I really just wasn't expecting you today." He stopped by a calendar just next to the curtains before going back out into the store front, and his brow furrowed before he turned back to Bickslow. "I wasn't aware you'd be coming, right?"

"Nope, you didn't. We just wanted to come by and maybe surprise you."

"Wait… Who is 'we'?" Caspian asked, just noticing the slightly mischievous smirk on the Seith mage's face. "Oh! Are you with Freed and Ever today? And what's the other one's name? I keep forgetting his name. You know, the hulking one?"

"His name is Laxus," Bickslow chuckled. His uncle had met his team and Laxus soon after he'd joined the guild, but no matter how long he had known them, he could never remember Laxus' name. "But no, it's not them. Come on. You've got customers out there who'll probably need some guidance before they break up anyway."

Rolling his eyes at his nephew, he followed him out through the gold curtains and into the front of the dim shop once again. With Bickslow going over to a blonde staring at a necklace display, her back towards them, Caspian looked to the couple browsing the engagement ring collection right next to him. He'd seen them when they'd first walked in – over half an hour earlier – and asked them if they'd needed any help on deciding on anything or if they they wanted to try any on, but they'd been quite happy just not being able to agree on a type of cut or style. Not that it really mattered, anyway. Why couldn't her boyfriend just get her the one she liked? How hard was it?

Sighing, he left them be, and turned back to Bickslow and the blonde, doing so just in time to see him startle her by wrapping an arm around her waist quickly and almost getting himself slapped in the process. "So… Who's this?" Caspian asked as he finally came up behind the two as they turned around.

Bickslow smiled down at Lucy before looking back up. This was a good thing. His uncle was pretty high up on the list of people most important to him, and Lucy was at the top of that list. Introducing the two was a step forward, and that's what they needed. That was what Bickslow needed. "Cas, this is Lucy. And Lucy, this is Caspian."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Caspian!"

Bickslow could only watch in complete shock for a moment when Lucy quickly stepped forward and threw her arms around Caspian, and the older man could only raise his eyebrows at his nephew out of sheer surprise. Bickslow shook his head with a nervous chuckle as Lucy stepped back, and as he lifted a hand just to rub at the back of his neck, he said, "Sorry. She's a hugger."

"I don't mind hugs," Caspian said to the seemingly embarrassed blonde in front of him. He'd really just been taken by surprise, is all. The fact that the blonde liked to hug was really no problem. His eyes caught the charm on the necklace she was wearing though, and recognition flashed on his face as he looked back up to Bickslow, and then back to Lucy with his own wide grin before quickly saying, "And it's a pleasure to meet you too, Lucy! Bicks has told me so much about you already!"

Lucy looked up to Bickslow who was only tilting his head curiously, then back to Caspian with a slight blush on her cheeks. "He… He did?" she giggled nervously.

Bickslow could see the devious glint in the eyes that were the same as his own – despite Caspian only being his uncle, he'd been closer to him than his own father and a lot of his traits he had picked up from Caspian over the years – and he could only wonder what was going through his head. "I didn't, actually," Bickslow mumbled, rather guiltily, at that.

"Oh, nonsense." Caspian waived Bickslow's remark with a light laugh. "The last time he was here when he was asking me to do something with that key of yours, he said you were special, and that tells me everything I need to know about you." It had been obvious to Caspian right from the moment Bickslow had handed him the broken spirit's key that whoever it belonged to was truly incredibly important to his nephew. And that had been before he'd even know the woman's name. Bickslow had said she was special, and Caspian had believed him.

What he hadn't believed, though, was that Lucy just happened to only be an important friend to Bickslow. And now, he was most definitely not believing that.

Looking away from the blushing blonde, Caspian lifted an arm to playfully shove his nephew's shoulder, and jokingly, he quietly mumbled, "Bet you're glad you've got that ring now, huh?" He really did only mean it as a joke, because if it was obvious they were far more than just friends, it was just as obvious that Lucy getting any kind of ring from Bickslow was not going to be something that happened in the _near_ future. He'd sold enough engagement rings to know when two people were in love enough to take that step, and he could see that they were surprisingly near that point. They just weren't there yet. But Caspian took great pleasure in embarrassing the hell out of Bickslow, and the looks of absolute horror that crossed both their faces was so, _so_ worth it.

 _Ring? Why the hell does Bickslow have a ring?!_ Lucy knew she was blushing up a storm as she looked up to him, but she just didn't see how she couldn't be. She ignored the quietly laughing man in front of her – she could, however, notice that both Caspian and Bickslow seemed to have the exact same look in their eyes, so she had quickly noticed that Bickslow's mischievous side was something he had probably picked up from him – and looked up to Bickslow. "Bicks? Anything you want to tell me?" she chuckled nervously, doing anything to ease the discomfort of the situation.

Bickslow shook his head quickly, and his arm retreated from where it had been around her waist and he folded them both across his chest. "Nope. Nothing." _Definitely not that I have a stupid fucking engagement ring sitting in my bedside table. I should probably move that somewhere you won't find it though…_ "Ignore th—"

"Oh, congratulations!"

Bickslow stopped mid-sentence and only stared in complete shock and mortification at the couple who had been looking at the engagement rings, each of them with matching smiles directed towards himself and Lucy. _This cannot be happening, this cannot be happening, this cannot be—_

"We recently got engaged ourselves," the woman continued, much to both Bickslow and Lucy's discomfort. "Still deciding on a ring, obviously. What about you two? There's some incredibly nice ones over here if you wanted to look at these."

Lucy remained as silent as Bickslow did for a moment. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Not a single sound came from her, because she just honestly didn't know what to say. _'Oh, yeah, we're not exactly engaged. Or even thinking about that yet because we haven't even been together for six months yet, but I'd probably say yes if he asked me to right now,_ ' would definitely just make things even more awkward, but a part of Lucy was honestly wondering if the situation could get any worse.

Bickslow, though, was completely convinced that nothing could make it any worse. Or any less comfortable. "This day just cannot get any worse." And quickly, after mumbling to himself more than anything, he turned and walked past the rest of the displays and out of the small store, leaving his stunned and embarrassed girlfriend alone with his uncle and the couple who had really just made his day a nightmare.

First it was the slip-up in the hotel room, and then it was his uncle bringing up the ring he'd mostly forgotten about and hadn't once thought about actually giving to Lucy (ever), and then the nosy couple who just had to assume they were engaged. It was almost as if the universe was trying to give him a sign. And granted, it was a pretty obvious fucking sign – hell, it was the size of a billboard and it might as well be flashing and in neon green, it was that obvious – but it was something Bickslow wanted to ignore.

It really wasn't a case where Bickslow was opposed to the idea of ever actually marrying Lucy, it was just that it was way too early to be talking about something like that. He knew that, he sure as hell hoped Lucy knew that, but the universe, as it seemed, did not know that. Part of Bickslow was still trying to comprehend that there was a very real possibility that Lucy would actually want to stay with him, because he'd spent so long telling himself that nothing like that would ever happen. He could never be the one to offer her the life she'd eventually want.

The difference now though, was that he really wanted to. At the very least, he could try to, and even that would be worth it. There'd be so many things to sort out and talk about if it even happened, but… Maybe eventually, when (hopefully) they'd been together for a while longer, a future together would be something they could talk about.

But now, it was something he still wanted to avoid.

With the store falling into an awkward silence after Bickslow left, Lucy looked back to Caspian, and then to the couple still standing by one of the glass cabinets. _Well that was awkward._ Lucy wrung her hands together in front of her as she smiled softly again, another nervous giggle slipping past her lips as she quietly said, "We're uh… Not actually engaged."

The woman blushed and shared a look of embarrassment with her partner. "O-Oh… I'm… I'm sorry," she spluttered, knowing just how uncomfortable she'd made the situation. Her face brightened some as she tried to fix it though, and hopefully, she continued, "Well, he could be proposing soon, y'know?"

"I highly doubt that."

"You never know…"

"Yeah, I do know," Lucy insisted gently. "We're nowhere near being ready for that." And with the woman and her partner only turning back around to continue browsing the rings that Caspian had made, Lucy turned her attention back to Caspian himself, noticing the way he seemed to avoid looking at her the same way Bickslow did when there was something he wasn't telling her about.

She couldn't help but wonder just why Bickslow apparently had a ring. Or had kept one, as it turns out. She hadn't come across anything, but it wasn't like she'd been through every single drawer and cupboard in the apartment. She knew Bickslow still valued his privacy to an extent, and she would always respect that. She was still curious though… Far too curious for her own good, actually, and so quietly, with the couple hopefully minding their own business again, Lucy quietly asked, "So, Caspian… Why exactly does Bicks have a ring?"

"I… Think I've said enough," he answered. _Bickslow can tell you about that when he's ready for that._ Clearing his throat, he finally looked back to Lucy and clapped his hands together. He wasn't going to talk about the ring, because that was bound to make things worse. And if it had only led to his nephew walking out to get his space and a bit of air, no doubt, then Caspian did feel just a little guilty. "But enough about that. How long are you two staying for?"

Lucy sighed, thankful for the change of subject. "We're here until the end of next week. Leaving on the Thursday afternoon."

"Oh, plenty of time to talk some more then!" Caspian still needed to get to know the blonde in front of him, and the longer they were staying there, the more opportunities he had to do that. It didn't help that he needed to also take the opportunity to spend more time with Bickslow, because he was always wanting to know just what he was up to those days, and the one time a year he saw him was not enough to do that. "What were your plans for tonight though?" he asked. "I'd love to talk to you some more over dinner tonight, if you were free."

"That sounds great!" Lucy beamed. "I think we were actually going to go out for dinner now, but I'm sure Bickslow would be fine with waiting a little while. When were you thinking?"

"Oh, if you two were planning on going out then we can do it another night."

"No, no. It's fine. I say dinner is okay, and Bicks has an inability to say no to me, so tonight is perfect."

Caspian laughed. "Whipped, is he?"

The smirk she gave him only gave him an insight into how their relationship worked, but it really wasn't all that surprising. "Just a little bit," Lucy answered. And with that, they quickly worked out the details of when and where to meet, before Caspian excused himself to attend to the couple still by the rings.

Leaving Caspian to actually do his job, Lucy made her way past the rest of the jewellery displays and out of the store, and out onto the indoor balcony to see Bickslow leaning with his elbows on the railing and looking down to the bustling casino on the floor right below them.

He looked up when he felt Lucy beside him, and he smiled weakly before looking back down. "Sorry," Bickslow mumbled. "I just needed to… I don't know. Get some air, or something."

"It's okay. I don't blame you for leaving," Lucy said softly. "That was… Yeah, I'm not sure what that was, to be honest." She paused, ignoring how she still wanted to know about the stupid ring that apparently existed, before she lifted one of her hands to lace her fingers with Bickslow's, and she stepped back from the railing to pull him away from it. Lucy would wait until Bickslow wasn't so uncomfortable to even _think_ about asking him what Caspian had meant. "But for now, we have an hour to kill before we go have dinner with Caspian, and I feel like going back to the amusement park right now."

* * *

 **So, yeah... The split was a bit weird, I'll admit, but it works. Part two will probably be a little shorter than this though, but that's fine since my chapter lengths for this have been all over the place. There's quite a bit that happens in these chapters, and especially in the next one. Even though I tend to ramble a lot, there's quite a few tiny details that don't seem important, but they will be. Heheh... I wonder if any of you will guess what's actually coming in the next chapters though. You should be able to, since I make all of my stories a little (unfortunately) predictable...**

 **I hope you all enjoyed this part though! The next one will be up as soon as it's ready to be posted. Don't forget to review/favourite/follow!**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**


	14. (V) Truth - Part 2

**So I know I said Truth would only be in two parts, but I had to split it again, because if I didn't, part two would have been over 20k, and that is way too long (and yes, I know, one of my most recent S &S chapters was 20k words). So, this one is a little shorter, and the next one, which should be up in the next few hours at most, will be longer. **

**Anyway. I know the split for this is a little weird, but there was not supposed to be one at all, and I guess it does kind of lead on nicely... I just need to finish off the last tiny part and then proof the rest of it again before getting it up, and so that will be later tonight (and this was uploaded at 9pm as it was, so whatever).  
**

 **Hope you like it. I'll have more notes at the end of the next chapter.**

* * *

 ** _CHAPTER 12: VENDETTA  
TRUTH - PART 2_**

* * *

With a little over twenty minutes left before they had to meet Caspian at the restaurant – the same one that Lucy had wanted to go to anyway, thankfully – they found themselves on the Ferris wheel, just in time to watch the sun begin to set over the horizon like they had the last time they were there. Lucy had cleverly avoided all rollercoasters that evening, and anything that would have her going upside down in general, just because she hadn't exactly been fond of the idea of vomiting in the nearest trash can as soon as she was off any ride. That was something she didn't want to relive, because it had been painful and embarrassing as all hell.

They'd spent a lot of their free time in the sideshow alley of all places. They hadn't spent much time in there the last time they'd been there, so Lucy hadn't seen just how good Bickslow actually was at almost all of the games in there. Of course, she'd quickly figured out that there was an incredibly good chance that he cheated just a little bit by having the babies' souls getting involved, but Lucy didn't really mind. It was too fun watching everyone else playing and the operators of the stalls stare at him in shock when he managed to win every single time.

And when he won her a giant stuffed giraffe that was white with rainbow coloured markings, and then a giant pink ladybug, Lucy definitely didn't mind. They were soft and cuddly and honestly, she was probably going to end up spending more time cuddling them in bed rather than her boyfriend. Bickslow would just have to get over that one.

Settlings themselves into the hexagonal carriage with just the domed roof and the metal supports on each corner holding it up, they each placed the giant stuffed animals they'd been holding on the wooden benches that wrapped around the inside of the carriage or on the floor, and waited for the wheel to turn again after the gate had been closed and locked.

A sigh escaped Lucy as she curled in against Bickslow's side and lowered her head to rest on his shoulder as his arm went around her own shoulders. She only smiled at the slowly setting sun as they began to move higher before she looked up to Bickslow. "So… Are you going to tell me what Caspian meant earlier?" she asked. Feeling him tense suddenly, she giggled quietly before continuing, "Come on. I know you're not planning on proposing or anything. Just tell me about this mysterious ring you apparently have."

Bickslow found himself relaxing just a tiny bit when she said that she knew he wasn't going to propose. That was a good thing, really, because it meant she wouldn't get disappointed and she wouldn't be expecting anything at least, not that Bickslow would ever want her to expect him to propose. No, if he ever did, he'd want it to be somewhat of a surprise. Sort of. Maybe. He hadn't thought about it much, and he wasn't ready to think about it any more than what he already had.

But Bickslow knew Lucy, and he knew that Lucy would no doubt pester him until he told her about the ring. He was realising it wouldn't be the end of the world if he explained it all though, because it wasn't exactly like he'd actually gone out and bought an engagement ring with the intentions of giving it to Lucy one day. No, it just… Happened to fall into his hands. He didn't want it, but he had it.

Sighing finally, not even bothering to look down slightly to his girlfriend since he hadn't needed to see her face to cave, he reluctantly explained, "I may or may not have an engagement ring sitting in a drawer at home." He paused, closing his eyes as he stifled the urge to hit his forehead with his hand. "Okay, I do. But it's really not that big of a deal. Cas gave it to me the last time I was here, when I was asking him to make Aquarius' key into something. It was my mum's, and since it was left to me for whatever stupid reason, Cas had to hold onto it since we were all kind of frozen on an island when she and my dad died."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Lucy whispered.

"It's okay. It doesn't really matter." Only seeing the slight frown on her face as he glanced down, he continued with another sigh, "So anyway, when we were here last year, Cas ended up giving the ring to me since he forgot to the do the last time I came to visit, which was Christmas the year before last. I didn't really want to take it, but I kind of had no choice in taking it, so it's been sitting in a drawer ever since because I didn't know what to do with it." Bickslow could still remember just how uncomfortable dinner had been that night, sitting with Lucy in a far too romantic restaurant on the beach as just friends with a fucking engagement ring in his pocket, all because he hadn't had time to go back to his room to stash it in his bags before meeting Lucy for dinner. He wasn't exactly going to tell Lucy that little detail though. Oh no.

"So you have your mother's engagement ring at home?"

He nodded. "Yup."

"And your uncle decided it would be a good idea to tease you about it… In front of your girlfriend?"

"Apparently."

"He's an interesting one," she laughed, the breezy sound bringing a smile to Bickslow's face and letting him let that last bit on tension and embarrassment go. "I like him though. I'm really happy that I got to meet him."

He lowered his head to lightly kiss her temple, and he softly said, "I'm glad you are." He'd honestly been a little worried about introducing them, but… Considering all things, it had gone well. They still had dinner to get through, but he was sure that would be okay. Bickslow knew Caspian liked Lucy, even if they'd only talked for a few minutes at best, and Lucy obviously liked him so far. That was a great start, and it was exactly what Bickslow needed.

Lucy sighed happily as she shifted to get comfortable against Bickslow again, then looked back to the horizon with a smile as they continued to move higher, stopping and starting occasionally on their way up as more people got on or off the Ferris wheel. "Are you ever going to show me this ring of yours when we get back?" she asked innocently.

"No way," Bickslow scoffed.

"Aw, why not?"

"Because…" His mouth only continued to open and shut as he tried to come up with an excuse, and his brow became furrowed as the blonde beside him quietly began to giggle, knowing full well that she'd backed him into a corner. "Just… No. You're not seeing it." That would just be weird if she saw it, wouldn't it?

"You're no fun," Lucy pouted. She couldn't see the harm in seeing it, but her boyfriend was really just ruining all of her fun. Though, she did make a mental note to see if she could find it once they were back home. Or convince Bickslow to show her. One of the two. But all the awkwardness surrounding their relationship and where it was at (or where it wasn't at) was only suddenly reminding Lucy of something she was actually quite excited about. Sitting up suddenly and turning to Bickslow who was only looking at her with an eyebrow slightly raised, she said, "Oh! that reminds me! We're going to a wedding next month."

"We are?"

Lucy nodded quickly. "Yup! On the 24th, which, I thought was quite entertaining when I got the invitation a few days ago, since that will mark us being together for six months, and I thought that was pretty cool."

"I suppose," Bickslow mumbled. He didn't know what was _cooler_ though: them actually lasting to six months (which, was just a little over a month away anyway, and by the time they left they would have hit the _five_ month mark), or them going to a wedding on that same day. He knew that it wasn't something to actually celebrate, but… It was a nice thought, to even know that Lucy had no doubts nothing would go wrong in the next month. Bickslow was thinking it was the former that was cooler though, because he wasn't exactly that thrilled about going to a wedding. "Whose wedding is it anyway?"

"Yukino and Macbeth's."

"Yukino…" The name rolled off his tongue as he blinked at Lucy, his brain slowly working on trying to remember just who Yukino was. It was a very familiar name, he'd heard Lucy bring it up a few times at least, but he just couldn't place it.

She rolled her eyes with a frustrated sigh. "She's in Sabertooth," Lucy said. She realised she couldn't be that mad that Bickslow couldn't remember who one of her best friends was, because he'd never actually met her in person and she hadn't exactly talked that much about her. "Short light blue hair, Celestial Spirit mage like me. She was in the Grand Magic Games the year I was in it too."

"Is she the one that wears a lot of white and blue and has the weird cape?" Lucy nodded, and Bickslow internally cheered. He'd never particularly been good with names and faces. He could remember Yukino now, but her betrothed? He had no idea. "But who's Macbeth again?

"Midnight," Lucy said. Bickslow gave her a blank stare, to which she only responded with another roll of her eyes before she said, "Erik's best friend."

"Who the fuck is Erik?"

"Are you serious right now? Isn't Cobra one of your friends? Macbeth, or Midnight, is Cobra, or Erik's, best friend."

"Oh! Cobra!" Bickslow grinned as Lucy let out a quiet sigh. He liked Cobra. They'd only met a few times, all because the members of his team and former guild had all decided to join Sabertooth rather than Fairy Tail when the time had come (it didn't help that Erza had quite literally scared off a good few of them, and the rest followed) and there weren't exactly that many opportunities to visit other guilds those days. But in the few times they had seen each other, they'd realised they had a few things in common, and one of those was pranking their guild mates (or just being slightly evil). Or, in Erik's case, his fellow Dragon Slayer. Natsu had been the target of a series of pranks just the year before, and through that, himself and Erik and formed a somewhat interesting friendship. "Yeah, we're friends. I've never heard of _Macbeth_ though. Guess I'll be seeing him at his wedding though."

"That you will."

With the conversation coming to a close with Lucy not thinking it would be the best time to remind Bickslow that he would have to actually dress at least somewhat formally, and he would most likely have to lose the visor again (she didn't think it would be that much of a problem though), Lucy once again turned back to the sunset, just as they reached the peak of the wheel. It was the just as beautiful the last time they'd been there, and Bickslow was just as convinced she was still far more beautiful that the sunset itself, but Lucy had found a new favourite way of seeing the sunset from a height, and that was strangely standing above Magnolia on the babies with Bickslow.

It was as she sat up slightly and slowly stood, leaning her hands on the barrier with one knee resting on the bench to get a better look of the sunset that wasn't obstructed by metal columns holding the roof up, that the Ferris wheel came to a halting stop. The jolting movement of their carriage only had Lucy slipping and losing her footing, but thankfully, she only managed to fall into Bickslow's lap.

She smiled up at him as her hands wound around his neck, and Bickslow could only look down at her with a slight frown. "Sometimes I wonder if you have a death wish," he mumbled. If he hadn't been holding his arm slightly just in case she did somehow manage to fall, then she probably could have hurt herself. And that, was the last thing he wanted happening.

"Nope," she giggled. "I've just been on Team Natsu for too long, and I've come to enjoy living just a little dangerously."

"And you wonder why I worry."

She craned her neck to lightly kiss her cheek, and she softly said, "You worry because you love me."

"Too much."

"There's no such thing as too much." When she used his own words against him, the corner of his mouth only tugged up into a small smirk. Only sighing quietly as she dropped her head to his shoulder, Lucy mumbled, "I wonder why we've stopped though." It wasn't like she minded though. Oh no. They were at the very top of the Ferris wheel, there was a slight breeze that made the weather actually bearable, and the view was still breathtaking. She was just curious.

And as if someone had heard her quiet words, from below them, no doubt through some sort of megaphone, they heard in a crackling voice, "Sorry for the inconvenience, folks. The power lacrima and the backup generator for the wheel have both broken down. We have a technician going to look at it now, but it will be at least another thirty minutes until we can get anything up and running again. So just sit tight and enjoy the views."

Bickslow leaned back to peer over the edge, seeing only the strip of palm trees that lined the boundary of the park and the beach and the other carriages below them. "Well, that sucks," he sighed. "We're supposed to meet Cas in fifteen minutes, but that's obviously not going to happen now…"

"I'm sure he'll understand when we explain it later. Another fifteen minutes won't be a big deal."

"I guess, but we're still going to be stuck here for a little while, and I don't know about you, but I tend to prefer Ferris wheels when they're actual moving. Otherwise they're just boring as all hell."

Lucy sighed in agreement as she continued to rest against his chest with her head on his shoulder, her eyes still focused on the setting sun. She knew that they probably could have managed to get out if Bickslow had had the totems he usually kept his babies in with him, but the last she could remember, they were still zipped up in Bickslow's luggage in their room at the hotel. Their only escape plan just wouldn't work, so they really were stuck there like everyone else was until they managed to get it working again.

If she'd had a book, she'd be okay. She could just read and keep herself occupied. Hell, she could even talk to Bickslow, but they didn't really talk that much in general. It wasn't that they couldn't talk or that they never wanted to, it was just that they liked the silence sometimes. Most of the times where they weren't talking and were just sitting in silence and just enjoying each other's company, it was because Bickslow just wasn't in a talking mood. If it was one thing she'd learned of the several months, especially so since they'd started dating and he'd really let her in, was that he was quiet. Get him talking about something he was really interested in, then it would be a miracle to ever get him to shut up… Like that one time that he'd randomly started listing everything he loved about Lucy one night a couple of weeks after Christmas. She loved the guy, but it had been after midnight and all she'd wanted to do was sleep, not hear him list every single thing about her.

And sure, sitting and waiting for the Ferris wheel to be fixed was probably one of those times where they could sit in silence and just enjoy the sunset together, because that was pretty damn romantic, and Lucy loved that. Or she could try and maybe find out a little bit more about Caspian, or even maybe his family if he was ready, so she'd maybe have something to talk to his uncle about over dinner. But Lucy just didn't really want to do either of those.

What she was thinking of right then though, was much more fun. And, it would kill the time. Or, at least some of it, and then it would be something else they could laugh about later, and that was always fun to do.

Sitting up slowly with a devilish smirk in place, one that only made Bickslow quirk a brow at her once again because it was a look he knew very well, Lucy pulled herself away from Bickslow just enough to sit back down on his lap once again, only with her knees on either side of him and resting on the bench.

"Lucy… What are you thinking…?" he asked slowly as her hands slowly trailed down from his shoulders.

"I'm thinking… That we have half an hour, and we're on holiday right now."

He swallowed the lump in his throat as she looked back up. Oh, he was certain that he knew what she was implying, but he was just trying to figure out where the hell the idea had even come from. Sometimes, he could only wonder what he'd done to her… Not that he regretted any of it. "But… You do realise we're outside… On a Ferris wheel, and there's other people just a couple of metres away from us… And if they get it fixed sooner…"

"I know exactly where we are, Bicks. And we're at the very top of it right now, so it's not like anyone will see anything." Seeing really wasn't the issue. It was the _hearing_ part that would maybe be a problem, but that wasn't all that important to Lucy. Slowly, she stood up once again, just to just as slowly sink down to the floor of the Ferris wheel carriage and between his legs. Her hands moved back up from where they'd stopped on his knees to begin to unbutton the thin shorts he was wearing, only internally rejoicing at the fact that he clearly had no intentions of stopping her, and she added, "But you should probably hope they don't get it fixed sooner, because this would be _so_ much better if we were able to really enjoy it."

Just a little unbeknownst to Lucy, Bickslow had never had any intentions of stopping her. He never wanted to stop her, and even if he did want to, he really didn't think he was capable of doing so. His body seemed to always act of its own accord once he saw her far too dark eyes, and he really could never complain. Them just happening to be in public (sort of) and on a Ferris wheel really did make it just a little fun though. _There's a first time for everything._

"You might just be the death of me one day. Literally." With just a quiet sigh of defeat, Bickslow quickly pulled the giggling blonde back up and into his lap again before pulling her down to crash his lips to hers in a demanding kiss. Sure, they really did hopefully have thirty minutes until they'd be moving again, which was plenty of time for them to have their Ferris wheel fun, but he really did want to enjoy as much of that time as possible.

* * *

Caspian looked up from the menu in his hands when he saw movement from the corner of his eyes, and saw Bickslow quickly sit down on the chair beside him, looking just a little breathless. "Is Lucy not joining us now?" he asked quietly as he placed the menu back down on the table.

"Oh, yeah, she is," Bickslow answered as he quickly cleared his throat. "She's just uh… In the bathroom. She'll be out in a minute."

After the Ferris wheel had started working again, Bickslow and Lucy hadn't had the time to go back to the hotel room. All they'd been able to do was send Lucy's new cuddle buddies – the giraffe and the ladybug – back to their room with two of the babies' souls in them since they'd forgotten to close the doors to balcony, and then head straight to the restaurant themselves. The Ferris wheel had taken a little longer than expected to get fixed, and it wasn't exactly like they'd had any complaints until it had suddenly started moving again and she'd been pushed into (accidentally, of course) the guardrail around it all just a little bit too hard when Bickslow lost his footing for a second, and she had a bruise on the back of her shoulder to show for it, too. But it wasn't like that had bothered her that much.

If their hotel wasn't another ten-minute walk in the opposite direction of the restaurant they were supposed to be meeting Caspian at, Lucy would have loved to go back and change. Or really at the very least, she'd just wanted to get herself cleaned up properly. But that just wasn't going to happen, because she already felt bad enough about making Caspian wait for close to half an hour, so the restaurant restroom was just going to have to do.

When she did eventually come back out, she made her way through the restaurant's dining area and out to where she could see Bickslow and Caspian sitting outside at their table. She smiled as she sat down opposite Bickslow with Caspian sitting on the other side of the table between them, and she quickly took a sip from the wine that she figured Bickslow had ordered for her while she'd been gone. "So, what have you been talking about while I've been gone?" she asked quietly.

"You, actually," Caspian answered. He'd only been sitting there with Bickslow for a few minutes, but he'd already learned that they'd only really been together for five months (but his nephew had been head over heels for her for a while before that), they'd moved in together, and that she was a _terrible_ cook.

A blush crept onto Lucy's cheeks as she looked to Bickslow, just to see him shrug and hide his smirk behind his glass. "Is that so?"

"Indeed," Caspian chuckled. "I hear you two recently moved in together though. How's that working out so far? Fighting over who has to put the dishes away?"

"Pretty well, I think," Lucy said. They'd managed to spend an _entire_ month with each other, in the same apartment and in the same bed, and they hadn't argued over that many silly things. Things were going pretty well. "But as far as the _dishes_ go," Lucy continued with a small smirk. "Bickslow cooks, and I do the dishes, because we both know I'm going to end up giving him food poisoning one day."

"Oh, come on. I like your cooking," Bickslow lied – not that it wasn't obvious. She was terrible, but he'd never actually commented on it. He loved her too much to hurt her feelings, even if he really had spent two days going between the bedroom and the bathroom after she tried to make dinner once before she'd moved in.

"You do not, and I know so. It's okay though. You can tell me. I know I'm horrible in the kitchen."

Bickslow sighed. She knew she sucked, he knew she sucked. Hell, her team probably knew she sucked… "Fine, you're worse than Laxus when it comes to cooking, but I still love you. Just… Not so much when you're cooking."

A bubbly laugh slipped past her lips before she lifted her wine glass and said, "Oh well. At least I'm still better than Erza." The only thing Erza was able to make was a strawberry cake, and even then, she put far too much sugar in it to really make it edible. How herself and Wendy managed to devour it and not go absolutely loopy from the sugar overload, no one really knew. "But enough about me being a terrible cook," she said brightly, turning her attention to Caspian. "I want to know more about _you_ , since I'm sensing that Bicks gets most of his traits from you."

"Well, that's not all that surprising, I suppose, considering I'm the one that practically raised him," Caspian said a little bitterly as he leant back in his chair and glanced to Bickslow. Looks-wise, Bickslow had mostly taken after his mother and Caspian's late sister – the hair, the eyes – but personality wise, that had always really been unique for Bickslow. But still, when you spend so much time around a person, you tend to pick up a few traits from them, and that's what had happened with Bickslow. He'd spent more time actually around Caspian than he had his parents that it was bound to have made him the way he was right then.

None of it was really that bad though. It was just the way it had turned out.

What Lucy didn't quite understand though, was why Caspian had raised him and not his parents. "Oh. But I thought Bickslow's parents didn't pass away until a few years ago?" Lucy asked softly. "Were they just busy people, and that's why he spent more time with you growing up?" That was a plausible reason to Lucy, because that's essentially what her own life had been like.

But Caspian only looked to Lucy in confusion for a moment before turning to Bickslow, only to see him looking down to where his hands were in his lap. "Does Lucy not know?" he whispered, watching as Bickslow slowly shook his head and refused to look up and to Lucy, already knowing that she was worrying again. "Any of it?"

"No."

"Oh boy… I'm really on a roll today with saying things I shouldn't be," Caspian muttered with a heavy sigh. First it was the ring, and granted, it had been a joke and Bickslow had mentioned that he'd told Lucy about it just before, and then it was saying just enough to make the situation uncomfortable.

Caspian felt the sorriest for Lucy though. It had been such an innocent question, but she just had no idea, and Caspian wasn't all that surprised that she only looked like she wanted to curl up into a ball like Bickslow probably wanted to. With the two on either side of him only sitting in the awkward silence that he was blaming himself for, Caspian realised that he needed to also be the one to fix it.

He had quickly come to see that Bickslow's past was not something that had been brought up yet, but that Lucy knew enough – whether it was because Bickslow had told her or because she was obviously smart – to know not to press it. So still wanting to find a way to not have his nephew's holiday with his girlfriend start horribly, Caspian forced a smile and quickly looked between the two as he said, "So you two are here for a week, right? Were you going to go on any of the tours? I hear the snorkelling ones are good this time of year."

Bickslow cleared his throat quietly as he finally looked back up, a little hesitantly at first even though he was far too thankful for the change of subject. "I uh… I think we were going to go check out the shallow reef snorkelling on Monday," Bickslow mumbled before he looked back to Lucy. "That's what you said you wanted to do that day, right? Or was that the day you wanted to go to the museum?"

Lucy smiled weakly as she nodded. "Yeah, I did," she answered. "And then it was the nautical museum on the Tuesday." They had their entire trip planned out, or at least, they had most of it planned out. They'd agreed that a lot of their week there would comprise of them either spending all of their time in their swanky (as Bickslow had called it that morning) hotel room or on the beach improving their tans.

What their week didn't comprise of, was awkward conversations about Bickslow's family. Or at least, that's what Lucy was hoping for, because she really didn't want that to be weighing down on them. Or really, Lucy didn't want that weighing down on Bickslow, because they were supposed to be enjoying their time there. He wasn't supposed to be uncomfortable at all.

And so for the rest of the night, they each did their best to steer clear of topics they knew would just make their evening uncomfortable. Caspian learned a lot about Lucy, Lucy got to know Caspian, and Bickslow mostly just sat and watched the two people that meant the most to him get along with each other. He'd known they would before he'd even introduced them, but it was still nice to see it happen.

* * *

Lucy's eyes quickly opened in her confusion, and she blinked away the tiredness in them as she slowly sat up and looked around the hotel room bathed in the moonlight. When she'd rolled over, not quite asleep yet, she hadn't expected her arm to find just the cold of the silk sheets beside her.

The last few weeks alone, having spent almost every second of every day together, Lucy had come to learn that more often than not, she would somehow find herself curled up against Bickslow and he'd have an arm around her to keep her close. That's just how it was, and they'd gotten used to it.

But when Lucy looked around the room – and the bed – she couldn't see Bickslow. And he'd never been one for disappearing in the middle of the night, or at least she didn't think he was. She couldn't ignore the unease that made itself known within her as she slowly climbed out of the bed and turned on the lamp beside her, and pulled the short satin robe she'd had on earlier over her shoulders.

Walking out onto the balcony and through the open curtains, she frowned when she looked down to the beach and saw a figure sitting on the sand, the blue of his hair unmistakable even from where she stood. Lucy could tell that he needed his space and he wanted to be alone right then, for whatever reason, but she didn't like that. He had always been alone, and Lucy knew that there were still the odd occasions where he let his thoughts get the better of him and he'd retreat into himself again and insist that nothing was forever. He'd be left alone again like he always was, and not even Lucy would be able to stay and deal with the mess that he was and would always be.

Sometimes, he just needed to be reminded that things were different then. They were different with her; _she_ was different. Sometimes, he just needed to be reminded that she was and always would be there for him, no matter what. And sometimes, he just needed to be reminded that he could talk to her about anything, and right then, Lucy felt like she needed to do that.

Ever since they'd left the restaurant after dinner, Bickslow hadn't quite been himself. She knew that he'd been trying to hide it, and that he'd been trying to pretend that whatever had happened after she'd asked about why his uncle had raised him instead of his parents wasn't a big deal. But Lucy knew that it was, and she _so_ wished she'd been able to actually apologise for saying what she had, but she couldn't, because Bickslow had only said it was nothing she had to apologise for. So… She'd dropped it. Again.

Right then though, Lucy had a feeling that Bickslow being down on the beach alone in the middle of the night had something to do with what had been brought up at dinner. And she still wasn't going to ask, because she knew better than to get him to talk about something when he wasn't ready to, and his family – his parents, his past, and whatever had happened in it – was something he wasn't ready for. But when he was, she would gladly listen, and she thought that he needed to be reminded of that.

So turning back into their hotel room, she went to her bags to pull out her go-to bikini and quickly pull it on before tying the short robe around her waist once again, and then silently made her way out of the room and into the hall, heading for the stairs at the end of the hall.

She silently sat down on the sand next to him once she had reached where he was sitting, and she gently pulled one of his hands into her lap and held it between her own smaller hands. He hadn't looked up at her, or moved a single muscle on his own. He only stared out at the gently crashing waves before them as they sat there on the beach, his legs crossed under him. "You know that you can talk to me about anything that's on your mind, Bickslow." Lucy's soft voice filtered in over the sound of the calm breeze and gently crashing waves, and he nodded weakly.

He knew that he could talk to Lucy. She was his girlfriend for heaven's sake. Their relationship wouldn't be half as strong as it was right then if they couldn't talk about anything and everything. But even if he did know, sometimes, he just needed to hear it again, and right then, it had been exactly what he'd needed. It was just one of the reasons he loved Lucy as much as he did, and as much as he always would. She was always there when he needed her the most, whether it be reminding him of what was important and what was the truth, or just being there and doing something simple like holding his hand so he didn't feel quite so alone sometimes.

But even if Bickslow knew he was always able to talk to her, there were some things that made that more difficult than it should be. He _wanted_ her to know about his past. He needed her to know about it, because he needed her to see that it was why he'd become the person he'd been just a few months earlier, really. Even if so much had changed, there was still that part of him that had yet to disappear.

The part that wanted to constantly hide behind his walls when he was around anyone other than Lucy or Caspian. That didn't want to trust anyone, or let them in and see just who he really was. Because no matter how much Lucy had helped him bury that part of himself over the last few months, it still remained. That part of him that had always been and always would be broken was still there, and Bickslow would never be able to ignore that.

He had accepted that he would always be scared of the outcome of telling Lucy everything, but he still didn't quite know what to do about it. It was why he was down on the beach in the first place. He'd needed to think, and there was no way in hell he was getting any sleep that night, not with all that was going around his head, and definitely not when Lucy was right beside him. It was too tempting to just try and bury it all in the dark within him and try his best to forget about it all. It was the past, after all, and his past didn't matter in the slightest when it came to Lucy.

With Lucy, it was his future that mattered the most to Bickslow; _their_ future that meant the most to him.

But… He knew that his past _did_ matter. He didn't want it to, but it did and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd just needed to clear his head and think about whether it was really worth bringing everything back up again, because he couldn't help but worry that it would change things between himself and Lucy in their relationship, and that was the last thing he wanted. He needed to know that potentially changing things, or even ruining things, would be worth it, but for all the time he'd been sitting on that beach and staring out at the dark sky and the ever darker water, he hadn't been able to figure it out.

All he'd been able to do was decide for certain that Lucy needed to know, and that he wanted her to know. And right then, with her sitting beside him and making him remember that he wasn't alone and that he could talk to her about anything and everything, that's what he wanted to do.

He just… Didn't quite know how to bring it up. Was it even the right time to do so? _Probably not._ The last time he'd seen the time, it had been just past two and that had been when he'd been leaving to get his air. He didn't even know how long he'd been sitting on the beach for, but now he was only thinking that the middle of the night was not the best time to be bringing up his dark and dreary past.

"What are you doing up anyway?" Bickslow suddenly asked as he finally looked away from the water and to Lucy.

She shrugged. "I rolled over expecting to find my boyfriend next to me, but I didn't and got curious."

"Oh. Sorry," he mumbled. He'd wanted to let her sleep, not be the reason she was awake. She didn't need that. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I just... I just needed to think about some things and I didn't want you to worry about me or anything." _Not just yet, anyway._ Bickslow knew that once he'd told her, she would take her worrying over him to a whole new level.

"It's alright. You didn't wake me. I wasn't really asleep in the first place."

"But it's still late, so you should probably go back to bed anyway," Bickslow said softly. With his hand still between hers, he slowly picked himself up from the ground and pulled Lucy to her feet with him. "That way, you won't be sleeping all day and I can take you to one of the cafés here for breakfast."

Lucy smiled as they slowly walked across the beach and back towards the hotel entrance. "We could always just stay in and order more room service though. I'm sure their breakfast is as good as everything else."

"That's a far better idea. Why didn't I think of that? Room service doesn't require me putting on clothes." Or, really, it doesn't really require him to get out of bed, and that was what was important. "But speaking of clothes…" With Lucy quietly laughing beside him as they walked, he leant back as they did so and he dropped his hand to toy with the thin fabric of her short gown and lift it up teasingly. "Are you even wearing anything under that?"

She quickly reached around herself to push his hand away before it got any higher, and she quickly answered with a small smirk, "Yes, I'm wearing something under it. I wasn't going to sit on the beach in just this. And besides, did you really think I was going to go onto a _public_ beach in a tourist destination in _just_ a gown?"

Bickslow raised an eyebrow curiously. "If memory serves me correct, you were _skinny-dipping_ on this same beach not even six months ago." Then, just to tease her even more and make her blush stand out even more, he added, "Do I need remind you that you were riding me at one point on a Ferris wheel just this evening? I really don't think you have a problem with public places as much as you think you do, Cosplayer."

"Maybe not," Lucy giigled. "But you really shouldn't expect things like that to happen very often."

"Oh? But you didn't say I shouldn't expect them ever again…"

"Didn't I?"

He dropped his head as he kicked the hotel door closed behind him, and gently pulled her pierced ear between his teeth and mumbled, "Nope." Bickslow couldn't even begin to fathom just what went through Lucy's right then, but it didn't really matter, because it was one hell of a distraction from what had been worrying him for the last week and a half.

It wasn't even like he was going to be talking about anything that night anyway since it was far too late to be having that kind of conversation (or maybe it was Bickslow trying to put it off still), so he welcomed being distracted.

Lucy didn't though. She was far too worried about Bickslow still, because she knew something wasn't right, and even when she had accepted she would need to wait until Bickslow was ready to talk about whatever it was that was bothering him, she didn't like that. She just wanted to know what it was, because she hated seeing Bickslow like that, especially when she was the only person in the world aside from Caspian that would be able to tell if something was wrong.

Quickly pulling herself free from his hands and away from him, only flashing a quick grin before turning her back to him, she picked up the pink cotton shorts and light blue tank top that had been strewn across the foot of the bed and headed around to the bathroom beyond the divider.

"Oh, that's just _mean_."

She didn't want to be taking great delight in the heavy sigh that she heard Bickslow give, right before she figured he dropped himself down onto the bed, but she did. She _could_ give Bickslow what he wanted right then, but she wasn't going to. She didn't want to do that, because she didn't want to be a distraction, and she knew that's what she was then.

When Lucy walked back around the divider, Bickslow was climbing back into the bed himself after changing out of his sandy clothes, and she silently climbed in beside him and pulled the soft sheet up to her waist. She knew it was nearly three in the morning, but she just didn't want to sleep all of a sudden, even when she had Bickslow next to her again and they were a tangled mass of limbs, despite the constant humidity and heat that Akane Beach offered.

Lucy's need to make sure that things weren't truly as bad she had a feeling they were for Bickslow – having long since learned he was incredibly gifted at keeping things hidden, even from Lucy when he wanted to and when it came down to it – had her unable to close her eyes as she looked to Bickslow in front of her. "Bickslow?" An eye cracked open at the soft voice, and even when it had barely been above a whisper, he could hear the worry in it. Staying silent and only waiting for her to continue, she did so, and asked just as quietly, "Are you okay?"

It felt like the stupidest question to even ask to Lucy, but she just needed to know. To Bickslow though, it wasn't that stupid. He'd almost expected her to actually ask him. At the very least, she'd be wondering it.

But was he okay? Not really, probably. He wanted to be, but right then he really didn't feel like he was, not with what was going through his head. Opening his eyes completely to the dim room, he looked to Lucy for just a moment. He wanted to say that he was fine and that he'd just had a long day and he'd been thinking about some things more than he should have, but Lucy would know he was lying, and he didn't really want to lie to her. He'd done enough of that in the past and he didn't want to do it anymore.

But this… All of this was different to Bickslow, and he just didn't quite know what to do. Sighing quietly, Bickslow only said, "Which truth do you want?"

"I shouldn't have to answer that, Bickslow."

He sighed again, and he lifted a hand to run through his hair before dropping back to to her waist. _Should have expected that one._ Of course she'd want the real truth, the one that was only bound to make her worry even more. What else was he going to do now, other than tell her that, no, he really didn't feel like he was okay. And Bickslow was beginning to see that he wouldn't be until he got out what had been bothering him.

Until he told her about his past and his family, he wouldn't be able move forward. Any kind of future with Lucy and one that he was beginning to see he really wanted just wouldn't be the same as it _could_ be. "I know you shouldn't," he apologised quietly. "So… No. I don't think… I don't think I am okay." Lucy managed to pull his head down until he had his face pressed against her chest so quickly it almost surprised him. It wasn't all that unexpected though, since he'd realised her ample chest was the best form of pillow to lean on when he was down. It had just surprised him a little bit, and only letting out a weak chuckle as he manoeuvred to a slightly more comfortable position to curl around her more (and turn his head so he could actually breath), he savoured the feeling of her fingers threading through his hair and the silence that filled the room until Lucy broke it softly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Part of her hadn't expected him to give her that answer, but there was also a part of her that was glad he had. Bickslow was letting her in again and letting her see through everything he put up. Even with Lucy, there were still a few walls he put up every now and then, and she knew that. She'd accepted that, and he'd even told her once before that he tried not to, but sometimes, old habits just die hard. Sometimes, keeping her from knowing everything was just his way of trying to protect her and trying to not rely on her as much as he did.

But right then, he wasn't doing that. He was letting her in – letting her worry and letting himself rely on her. And for that, she was glad. It was always about steps with Bickslow, and as she had been there for every single one he'd taken so far, she'd be there for him for the rest of them and any more he would take. And if talking about whatever it was that had Bickslow like that was another step, she would be there to listen, whether it be right then, or the next day or week or even month.

But Bickslow wanted to talk about it then. Three o'clock in the morning just felt like the right time to do it all of a sudden, because even just having Lucy holding _him_ made him feel just that little bit better. Like nothing would change once she knew everything else, and that he didn't really have that much of a reason to be scared.

She'd told him once that being close to him, even when they were just sitting on the lounge or up in bed and watching something, made her feel safe. And right then, for the first time, Bickslow was understanding that. "Kinda," he mumbled. "I just don't really know how to… Or even where to start."

A soft smile pulled at her lips and she quietly said, "Just start wherever feels comfortable, Bicks. You know I'll listen either way and do my best to help you if I can."

"You always help me," he sighed as he brought his head up slightly, up towards her shoulder.

"So let me help you again. I don't like seeing you like this, and I hate knowing that something is wrong. Just let me in, okay? Please."

That was what he needed, and wanted, to do. Let her in. Just that last little bit. It was all he had to do. It was just… Hard. But that didn't matter, because _life_ was hard and he'd been coping pretty damn well with that since Lucy decided to make his a whole lot better.

Nodding slightly as he closed his eyes again, Bickslow mentally drudged up all that had been kept in the shadowy confines of his mind for far too long. He needed somewhere to begin though, and as he laid there with Lucy in silence, Bickslow was reminded of just how similar it was to what had happened almost five months earlier. Sitting with Lucy after he'd screwed everything up so badly he really hadn't thought things would have ended up as half as good they were then, and just needing to explain everything to try and make things better. He'd let her in then, more than he had anyone else in a long time, and that's what he was doing then.


	15. (V) Truth - Part 3

**Yeah... Three parts, and all of this was originally supposed to be in one chapter. Bet you're all glad I split it up now though, right? :P**  
 **Anyway. More notes at the end, and the part in italics at the beginning is the last paragraph from Chapter 12, just in case you didn't read these chapters around the same time.**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 13: VENDETTA**_  
 _ **TRUTH - PART 3**_

* * *

 _Nodding slightly as he closed his eyes again, Bickslow mentally drudged up all that had been kept in the shadowy confines of his mind for far too long. He needed somewhere to begin though, and as he laid there with Lucy in silence, Bickslow was reminded of just how similar it was to what had happened almost five months earlier. Sitting with Lucy after he'd screwed everything up so badly he really hadn't thought things would have ended up as half as good they were then, and just needing to explain everything to try and make things better. He'd let her in then, more than he had anyone else in a long time, and that's what he was doing then._

* * *

Things weren't really all that different, surprisingly, even though so much had changed, because he was back to feeling slightly scared and exposed and telling the one person he loved more than life itself everything she _deserved_ to know.

And thinking of that, Bickslow only realised that there was no better place to start than at the beginning. So quietly and as steadily as he could, he began, "Do you know that photo that used to sit on the shelf before I moved it to the spare room? The one of me when I was younger and I was with my parents?"

 _So it really is about his family_. "I remember it."

"And you said that I looked happy?" he continued, still keeping his eyes closed before he let out another sigh and opened his eyes again. "I wasn't happy. At all. I… Don't even remember being anything other than miserable to some extent until… Until you, really." The unfortunate truth was that Bickslow really couldn't remember a time where he was _truly_ happy until he'd started letting Lucy into his life. Everything before then had mostly just been horrible and he'd hated it, especially before he'd joined the guild.

Lucy could already feel her heart breaking for Bickslow as she continued to slowly run her fingers through his hair. She could understand that not everyone – especially those in the guild – had had the best childhoods, and she could understand that well because she hadn't exactly loved hers all that much. But Bickslow's… Lucy could already see that Bickslow had had it harder than most, and she was almost wishing she wasn't going to have to hear it because she was no doubt going to end up in tears at some point.

But… She knew Bickslow needed to say it now, and even if there was a tiny part of her that was glad she'd been the reason for him to be happy, she didn't comment on it.

"But aside from just how depressing it is that it took me twenty-three fucking years to come even close to being actually happy, I had a pretty fucked up life, if you hadn't already guessed," he said just a little bitterly. If he couldn't find the humour in his own fucked up life, then what else was he to do? Softly though when he could tell Lucy was scowling, he said, "My parents hated me."

"No parent hates their child," Lucy whispered.

"These ones did," he insisted. "They did ever since I can remember, and there really wasn't anything I could do about it because it was really all because they had a son who just happened to be born with the curse of being able to use Seith magic."

"Bickslow, don't say things like that. It's not a curse," she said sadly.

"But it's the truth. That's why they hated me. They didn't want a kid in the first place, but they had one, and they got stuck with a kid who could see souls and it was just another reason to hate my entire existence. It's not like I can blame them though. No one in their right mind would want that."

Lucy looked down at Bickslow as she stopped her hands running through his hair. "You calling me crazy now?" She would gladly have a kid who could see souls, whether it was planned or unplanned. With just a hint of pink on her cheeks and the barest of smiles, she added, "I can think of at least one person who's just a little insane and would be quite happy to have baby Seith mages."

 _She… She doesn't mean…?_ Bickslow couldn't look up, or even really respond to it. He didn't know how to, because he didn't want to hurt her. Even if she really did want kids with _him_ one day, he wouldn't. He couldn't. He wouldn't even risk it, not after the hell he'd been through as a child. He couldn't tell her then that he didn't ever really want to have children – even with her – because he didn't want to risk the possibility of ever having a child who was like him.

That just wasn't fair, and the thought of it terrified him. He couldn't tell Lucy that though. It would break her heart, and he wanted to be selfish for just a little while longer. _She'd change her mind on wanting kids with me once she hears the rest of it anyway. She'll see it's not a life worth risking._

With that thought in mind, he only continued once again, keeping his voice as soft as it always had been in the fear that bringing it all back up again would break him all over again. "I can remember when I was really little, that I'd hear them talking about what they were going to do about me since I was starting to show signs of being able to use Seith magic. Before then, I guess things weren't horrible, but I knew they didn't really like me. But then when I started seeing them, it got worse."

"What's so wrong with your magic anyway?" Lucy asked, wondering just why his parents seemed to have an unwavering hatred for it.

Bickslow shrugged. "Everything, I guess. Or at least, that's what I thought and they thought then." It had been a while since he'd accepted that his magic wasn't really as much of a curse as he'd once thought it was, but for the majority of his life, he'd thought otherwise, and it had been because of his family and what he'd been brought up to believe. "My aunt on my mother's side was a Seith mage, and that's why I am one, because it kind of runs on her side of the family, so they kind of ran the risk of having a kid with my magic regardless or whether they wanted one or not."

"So where does your aunt fit in with all of this?"

"My aunt is the reason my parents hated me."

"Oh?"

He sighed quietly. "Yeah. Oh." Bickslow paused to open his eyes again, and he shifted just an inch to turn his head against her neck even more. Even with the weather, he didn't care about the heat. Not then. "She kind of lost it a few years before I was born, according to Cas. Apparently she'd never really been all that _sane_ , but it hadn't really been that big of an issue. She'd just been that kind of person."

"But then something happened, I'm guessing?"

"She decided to go on a bit of a murderous rampage, apparently. So my mother, who'd never really gotten along with her in the first place, apparently, came to hate her and was terrified of her own sister because of what she was capable of. And so of course, my mother's then boyfriend, became just as terrified of her, and decided that all Seith mages were all terrible people and could not ever be trusted."

She could hear the malice in his voice, and already, Lucy had heard enough to almost be glad she wouldn't be able to ever meet his family, aside from Caspian. She knew it was a horrible thought, but already they seemed like they were truly horrible people, and Bickslow hadn't _deserved_ to be hated for something he'd had no choice in. That just wasn't fair.

"So is Caspian from your mother's side of the family too?"

"Yeah. He was the oldest, and my mum was the youngest," Bickslow answered. "But because of what my aunt had been like, they hated what they thought I'd become, so I would always hear them talking about what they'd do with me before I became even more of a problem than I already was. Mum would always say that they could find like an orphanage or something that dealt with kids with magic, or they'd drop me off at the closest guild or something. And Dad would…" He paused, opening his eyes again to stare to one of the paintings on the wall in the dim room.

' _The kid's not a good swimmer. Could take him out to the rapids and say it was an accident.'_

' _He's constantly climbing that tree out the back and talking to the damn birds or fuck knows what. He'd probably fall eventually anyway.'_

' _He's allergic to peanuts or somethin', ain't he?'_

No… He couldn't tell Lucy any of that. Even if he'd only been six, nearly seven, at that point, he'd known what they meant. The solution to their problem was to eradicate it for good. But… His mother had had some form of heart and brain under all of it, and Bickslow had almost thought she'd actually loved him and that he'd just been a little crazy as a kid, because she'd almost shown him kindness. She'd kept his father – her husband – from doing something permanent.

"Dad would just agree," Bickslow mumbled. It wasn't that far from the truth, but he just didn't want Lucy knowing how dark it had been then. "But they didn't do anything. I'm not entirely sure why, because they wanted to. They mostly just tried to stay away from me and I tried to stay away from them, so I guess we kind of came to a mutual understanding. But I'd started collecting the babies around then anyway, so it wasn't all bad. I had people, or souls, to talk to, so I wasn't completely alone."

Just a small smile tugged on her lips then. "Wasn't Caspian around then?"

He shook his head. "Cas lived a few hours away when I was younger so I didn't get to see much of him. He always tried to visit when he could because he knew that I wasn't happy there and he knew my parents hated me, but there wasn't much else he could do then. I know he says he raised me, and I say that he did too because he was really the only person who cared about me at all, but it was only once I was older than I really got to spend time with him instead of my parents. I kind of raised myself, really. My parents just weren't interested," Bickslow answered. He really did wish his uncle had been the one to actual raise him from when he'd been a kid, but things just couldn't have happened that way.

Bickslow could still remember all the times he'd been awake late at night and Caspian had been visiting, only ever for a couple of days at a time, and he'd hear his parents arguing with him. And Bickslow had always known that it was always about him. His parents had always been insisting that Bickslow was fine – he was a happy child and that he was just a little odd, and Caspian would see right through all the lies and call them out on it.

That was what Bickslow's life had been like, and that was before he'd even turned nine. Two little souls that followed him wherever he went, an uncle who apparently loved him for who he was, magic and all, and two parents who loathed his entire existence but insisted things were fine and that they were just a happy little family when it wasn't just the three of them. But as soon as their front door was closed…

His parents hadn't bothered teaching him anything to get him through life, other than the bare basics. He'd read a lot, because Caspian had helped him learn and brought books with him every time he'd come to visit so he could learn on his own, even though he'd been a little behind for a while. The babies had helped where they could too, so he had constantly been up in the middle of the night with just a single light on as he sat up in his bare room and filled his brain with as much as he could.

His favourite of all the books that Caspian had ever brought him was one on his magic for his ninth birthday though. He'd known that his sister wasn't anything like Bickslow, and that who she was as a person had impacted on what had happened before her own death shortly after what had happened with her outburst. His youngest sister had never exactly been one to use her brain very often, and even growing up with a grandmother and a sister who used the exact same magic as her son and had the exact same capabilities, one wrongdoing had changed her complete outlook on it. She'd never bothered learning, unlike how Caspian had, and she'd let what her sister had done become the sole reason she was terrified of her own son – a harmless child who hadn't understood just what he'd done to deserve her hatred.

But with no one to teach him, Bickslow had had to teach himself. He'd learned from his uncle that there were things about his magic that would need to be learnt before it got too late and things would become even more difficult for him. So he'd spent too many nights awake, reading about what he'd be capable of doing one day, and he'd been able to see why his parents were scared of him.

"But when I wasn't talking to Cas when he was able to visit," Bickslow continued after a long while and another quietly sigh. "I was talking to the babies. They were really my _only_ friends until I was about twelve. Everyone kind of just hated me, because eventually word got out that my parents were scared of me because of what I was apparently capable of, and we didn't live in a very big town. Everyone kind of knew everyone, so I was always alone."

"You're not alone now though, because you have me and you have the guild and Caspian, and we all love you. No one hates you anymore," Lucy whispered. She knew that Bickslow knew that, but sometimes, he just needed to be reminded.

"Yeah, I… I know. But they did. But I got over it because I got brought up to believe it was all my fault anyway. But the babies kind of helped me get over it, and I wasn't so lonely when I was talking to them, and it didn't matter that everyone thought I was absolutely insane for talking to thin air, because they were all I had when Cas wasn't around." Until he'd received the totems as a gift from Caspian a few years later, Bickslow had never really liked transferring the souls to any kind of objects unless he was in the 'safety' of his own house. On the rare occasion where he did leave his house – he'd refused to ever call it a _home_ , because it had never ever been one – he had decided that he didn't need the added discomfort of people seeing a couple of randomly floating objects following him around. He'd known they were there and he could see them, and that had been all that mattered.

Turning to where they were all lined up in a row on the back of the sofa at the foot of the bed, 'resting' for the night, he looked to the one sitting on the far right – the one with the simplest and happiest of all the faces painted onto the little wooden bodies they'd been given. He knew that Lucy knew the names of them and that each one was different to the next, but he'd never really explained just how much they meant to him. Not even when she'd been sitting on his lounge at three in the morning and crying about losing Aquarius and feeling broken. He hadn't needed her to know that he cared about his babies more than just because they were a part of his magic.

"Pappa was the first one I found. Or really, he'd been following me around for a little while and I hadn't been quite sure what it was until around my eighth birthday, and then I learned that I could actually control them," Bickslow whispered. "I didn't name him for a while, because I didn't really know if I could do that or anything since it was all new to me and everything was kind of happening at once since I still knew almost nothing about my magic. But then I think it was on a really bad day… Dad had just come back from work I think and he was tired and I was apparently in the way and… And so I got out of his way, like I usually did and went back to my room with all of my books and Pappa, and I was really upset like I usually was because…" He took a moment just to try and regain his composure when he heard his own voice begin to tremble slightly, because it hurt. It had always hurt. "Because it really fucking hurt to know that my own father hated me, and had my entire life. And I was just a damn kid then, and I'd kind of accepted that they hated me because of who I was, but it still hurt, you know? 'Cause he was still my dad and I really just wanted him to at least like me."

Lucy was sure she was actually going to burst into tears any moment, especially after hearing Bickslow's voice waver. If she could have held Bickslow tighter to her, she would have, because she wanted to do something more to remind him that he wouldn't have to feel that alone and unhappy again. Not when she was there, and she really had no intentions of leaving any time soon.

"So I was sitting in my room and trying to pretend that he'd just had a really bad day and he really didn't mean it when he said he'd actually hated me, even though he'd said it before, because I thought he'd kind of get better eventually like Mum did, because she didn't really hate me as much as she used to then." Bickslow continued, not needing Lucy to say anything at all. He just… Needed to get it all out. "But I was still a kid, and I just really wanted my dad to like me because Cas wasn't there, but the souls were. And, you know, it kind of felt like he cared about me, even though he's just a soul… And so I wanted to give him a name, because he was always there when I didn't have anyone else, and I needed that. I didn't have a dad so I made my own, kinda."

"I'm so sorry, Bicks."

Bickslow lifted his head from where it was resting on his shoulder then, and looked up to her as her hand fell away from his head to drop to the pillows behind him. He could see she was upset and that it was hurting her, and to an extent, he'd expected it to impact her because he'd known that she would feel pity for him. But even if he'd expected it, he didn't really want it. Lucy feeling sorry for him wasn't going to change anything, because it was his past, and even if it was hurting like hell to even talk about any of it, actually telling someone about it was making it seem just that little bit better.

He only dropped his head again to gently nuzzle her cheek, and Bickslow softly said, "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"Of course I do," Lucy almost whimpered. "All the times I brought up your family and I had no idea what it was doing, and I'm just so, _so_ sorry you had to go through any of that."

"You didn't know though, and there's nothing wrong with asking questions. Not ever. If I didn't want you asking or knowing about my past, then I would have told you so." He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek and pulled her in tightly against his chest, letting her hide herself against it. "So I had a fucked up childhood," he mumbled after a minute, only slowly running a hand up and down her back. "Nothing anyone can do about it. It's in the past, but it's part of who I am anyway.

"But it just sounds so horrible."

"That's not even the worst of it," Bickslow said softly. "But I won't tell you the rest of it if you don't want me to." If it was hurting Lucy too much to listen to it, then he would stop. Even if he was feeling strangely relieved, he could deal with not telling Lucy the rest of it, because that was no doubt bound to make her even more upset.

She lifted her head and returned it to the pillow as her brows drew together. She couldn't begin to fathom just what could be worse than having parents who hated his existence for the most part and no one that was always there to keep him company. "No." She forced just a small reassuring smile as she made herself comfortable on the pillow with her nose just centimetres from brushing against Bickslow's. "If… If there's more, I want to hear it, but only if you want me to know."

"I want you to know, because I think… I think you need to know because it's why I was like the way I was. Or why I am the way I am, really."

She smiled again and said, "Then I'll listen."

Nodding, Bickslow let out another quiet sigh and picked up where he'd left of. Or really, at the next ginormous fuck up in his life. "So things kind of stayed the same for a few years, like they had before," he continued. "Cas was able to come and visit every couple of weeks, always bringing me new books and spending time with me and actually making me feel somewhat happy sometimes. People in the town kind of accepted the façade we always put on in the family, that my parents weren't scared of me and they didn't really hate me. On the outside and to almost everyone else, we were just a happy family again."

"But some people knew better?"

"A few did, yeah. When I was twelve though, this kid called Dallas moved into the house that was kind of next to ours. They were new to the town, so they didn't really know what had gone on before, so we actually became friends pretty quickly even though he was a couple years older than me. So at that point, it wasn't just me and Pappa and Peppe."

She felt just a glimmer of hope run through her then. "Was he a mage?" she asked.

Bickslow shook his head. "Nah, he wasn't. I was the only one in the town who could use any kind of magic. But, he did know about mine, and he even knew about the babies. We uh, we came best friends basically, and if I wasn't stuck in my room reading and trying to learn, then I would be out with Dallas just being a kid and all that. I actually thought I was pretty happy for a while, because I hadn't had an _actual_ friend until Dallas moved in and I thought that I could kind of forget about what giant assholes my parents – or my dad, specifically – was. But then he killed himself."

Lucy sucked in a harsh breath and she stifled the urge to bury her head in his chest again. She was beginning to see why Bickslow had always been so afraid of letting people in and trusting them – he lost everyone he cared about. His parents hadn't wanted him, Caspian wasn't able to be there all the time, and the first time that his life looked to actually be turning around because of someone he could actually trust and talk to… It was all taken away from him.

"It was a couple of months after my fourteenth birthday when he did it," Bickslow continued, his eyes downcast and his tone more sombre than before. This was the part he had been most worried about telling Lucy, because this was the part that changed him the most, if anything. "I'd known he hadn't been the happiest person once we got closer because he'd told me about how his parents fought a lot and his older sister used to always pick on him and all, and he knew that I hadn't been either, but I didn't think that kind of thing was even possible for him. I didn't think it had been that bad, But… It was." He paused to lick his suddenly dry lips, and he ducked his head just that tiny bit more away from Lucy before finding his voice again, only for it to come out less steady than before. "And… And one day we were out, just kind of walking around forest trails and over to the boundary for the next town that wasn't that far from our own, and then he just starts talking about how he was sick of his family and his sister and how he hated being miserable all the time. And… And he just kept walking and walking…"

Lucy bit her lip when she saw a crystal tear roll down his cheek and onto the pillow. The glimmer of hope she'd had before was long gone, and she was only feeling the cracks in her heart get bigger with each second.

"And so then he stops right in front of the train tracks we crossed almost every day, and then he turns to look at me. A-And I'm standing there and trying to get him to come away from the tracks, because the train that came at the same time every day was coming, and I… and I didn't want him to get hurt."

"Oh no… Bicks…"

"And he's just telling me that everything would be better after, you know? That things wouldn't be horrible anymore and that it was… T-That it was easy. Everything would be better in in instant. Just like that." He felt Lucy's hand on his cheek and her forehead come to rest against the top of his, and he closed his eyes. He watched it all again behind his closed eyelids, reliving that day like he had a million times before. A shaky breath made it past his lips, and he continued just as quietly, "Dallas wasn't listening to me. I tried… I tried to tell him not to do it, b-because he was my best friend and… And it wasn't something he could come back from, you know? It was a… A…"

"Permanent fix to a temporary problem," Lucy whispered.

He nodded as best he could. "Yeah, that's the one. And I didn't want him to do that. I thought… I thought things would still be okay if he stayed and he didn't… But… But then he just turned around again and I… And I didn't know what else to do other than just stand there, and I just couldn't move anyway." His eyes shot open, and he stared blankly at the stitching of her singlet, and his arm around her waist only subconsciously pulled her closer to him – as close as he could get her, because even thinking about Dallas again like that had only made Bickslow realise he would never cope with losing Lucy. Not ever. "I just stood t-there and watched my best friend slowly walk back towards the tracks. And then he was…"

 _He was gone… In an instant._

"Oh, Bickslow…" She only did her best to comfort him in that moment, and her arms wrapped around his head and his shoulders to hold the trembling Seith mage. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so, _so_ sorry that happened to you." Lucy had only seen Bickslow like that once before, and that had been when he'd found her sitting at her mother's grave on Christmas Eve. He'd just been a mess then. Everything had fallen apart so quickly then and it had only broken down all of his walls at once and left him vulnerable.

"I just stood there. I… I couldn't move, a-and I just stared at the place that he'd been for…" He turned his head away from her slightly so he wasn't mumbling any more than he already was. "I don't know how long I stared there for," Bickslow's voice continued to tremble again, doing his best to keep it otherwise steady with another breath. "But then I heard someone else, and… And it was this woman, and she was screaming. I thought it was just because she'd seen… She'd seen what happened to Dallas, b-but… That wasn't really it."

She turned down to look to the top of his head as her fingers ran through the hair at the nape of his neck. "Bicks, what is it?" she whispered, barely able to keep her own voice steady.

"She… The woman," Bickslow said. "She was screaming because of me. She t-thought that I-I… That my m-magic…" The look of absolute terror on her face when he'd finally been able to move and wasn't just staring at the spot where his best friend had just been standing in front of him, was a look he would never forget. The woman being one of his mother's closest friends just made the whole situation worse, and he could remember not even being able to get his vocal chords to work correctly to make any sound other than a strangled cry as she turned and ran.

She was running away from him, and she'd gone back to the town they both lived in, just to tell everyone what had happened. She'd told everyone, even his parents, that the boy they'd been scared of all along, had killed his best friend. Had him walk in front of a train against his will, while he just stood there and watched. That's what everyone thought when he eventually made his way back to his house, as he'd expected, really.

"S-So by the time I got back, everyone h-had thought that I'd controlled h-him and made him do it, because I-I'd slipped up a f-few times while I'd been trying t-to learn how my magic w-worked still, so people knew what I c-could do." What had happened then was precisely why Bickslow hated to that very day what he was _capable_ of doing. Looking at someone's soul had always just been a gross invasion of privacy to him, because you could always tell so much about a person like that. But actually taking control of someone… No person should have been capable of doing something like that, but he was, and he'd hated it. Caspian and Dallas had let him use his Figure Eyes on them a few times just so he'd been able to learn to control his magic, just so he'd be able to use it for something good one day. Even then though, Bickslow didn't use it for good. You almost never could, so he didn't. Either the visor was on all the time or he left it off when he was around people he trusted enough to go without the physical manifestation of his defence system, and he didn't use his magic unless it was absolutely necessary in his eyes. Lucy had always known that about him though. But he didn't have that defence system until he'd join the guild. "And then when I-I got back," he stammered. "My parents were j-just sitting at the table, and C-Clarisse, the woman, was t-there, and they'd been waiting. So I only s-said that I didn't do it, that h-he… That h-he killed h-himself and that it w-wasn't me, but s-she'd said that I was lying because s-she'd seen it with h-her own eyes."

"That is a horrible thing to accuse someone of," Lucy said bitterly. "Especially a child. Or, well, you were fourteen, but still. She shouldn't have assumed something like that." Was Lucy wishing that the woman was dead? Quite possibly. She rarely actually hated someone, but her, Lucy made an exception for.

Bickslow shrugged. "Just the w-way it was." _Now comes the hard part…_ This was the part he didn't want to be telling Lucy, but she needed to know it, just like she needed to know everything else. With a heavy sigh, he sat up and pulled himself away from Lucy to roll to his back, and he lifted both of his arms to pull at the strings that kept the leather bracelets around his right wrist. "This…" he said, loosely throwing the strips of material to the nightstand. "Wasn't an accident."

Lucy looked down to Bickslow as she sat up in the bed and he dropped his head to rest in her lap, lying sideways across the wide bed with his knees bent next to his pillows. Her brow furrowed as she pulled his wrist between her hands and she looked down to the scar that ran down the inside of it. "What do you mean?" she asked worriedly as she began to gently run her hand up and down his arm.

He sighed again before answering as calmly as he could manage after a deep breath, "After what happened to Dallas, e-everyone went back to hating me and everyone was terrified of me." He'd thought it had been bad before that, but it hadn't been. That had been nothing compared to what it had been like after everyone thought he'd decided to kill his own best friend. "I… I eventually just stopped leaving the house and staying up in my room and talking to the babies, because I just didn't really know what else to do. Things got pretty dark then though," he whispered quietly, staring softly at her hand moving along his arm as she held it against her stomach. "Even though I had the babies, I forgot how alone that I actually was, because it wasn't like I'd ever had my parents, Cas was only coming every weekend then, and then Dallas was gone…"

"Bickslow… Please tell me you didn't… That you weren't thinking of…" She couldn't even get the words out of her mouth before they died in her throat, because she didn't want to believe that it was he was trying to say. She didn't even want to think that that was it.

Bickslow's eyes flicked up to hers, and he was back to wishing she didn't have to know. It was hurting her – what he'd done, what he'd lived through, was hurting her. But this was one time where Bickslow had to hurt her. She was strong though, and she could get through anything. She'd only be in pain because of what he was telling her for a little while, and then… Then things would be okay again. Or at least, he really hoped they would be. "Did I try to kill myself?" he asked just a little bluntly. She'd guessed it, it had happened, so where was the point of hiding it and lying about it? She needed to know, no matter how much he wanted to keep that one to himself. "Yeah, I did. It obviously didn't quite go to plan, and it wasn't as spectacular as jumping in front of a train, but… Yeah. I did."

 _Jeez_ … Lucy knew her boyfriend had a bit of a morbid sense of humour sometimes, but joking about suicide? And his own attempted suicide? Even Bickslow had to have his limits…

Apparently not, it seemed.

"Uh… Sorry," Bickslow mumbled then though, suddenly more apologetic than he was before. He'd seen the way it had broken her just that tiny bit more, and that made it all the harder for Bickslow. But he could try and make things better, even through all the hell he was putting her through. So with just the corner of his mouth pulling up into a slight smirk, he said, "You're the first person I've ever told about that, and I guess joking about my failed attempt at offing myself isn't the best idea…"

She let out just the barest hints of laughter as she shrugged. "Yeah, maybe not."

 _Hey, it counts for something…_ But then their tiny moment away from the darkness of his past was ending, and they were being pulled back into it. Looking back to the slow movement of her fingers along his arm, Bickslow only shuffled on the bed to try and get a little more comfortable, even though if it had been any other day, he could have laid there all day like that. _Nothing is going to make this more comfortable. Just get on with it._ "But after Dallas died, I uh… I got really lonely again, but it was worse than what I'd grown up with. Dad kept going on about they should've told the magic council so they could put me somewhere that I wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else; Mum was avoiding me entirely because she was too scared of what I'd apparently become. Dallas was gone, Cas wasn't there, the town hated me and the babies couldn't do much to get what Dallas had kept saying out of my head."

' _It'd be over in an instant, Bickslow.'_

' _Just close your eyes and come with me.'_

' _Everything will be better after.'_

' _I promise.'_

"A-And, um… And then I just kept thinking about how everyone would be happier if I wasn't there anyway, so it… It seemed like the logical thing to do then," he stammered again. "I was miserable, I'd made my parents miserable and I was the reason that Cas and my mum had stopped getting along… So I kind of just thought it was a good idea at the time. It was… I-It was supposed to be easy."

' _Everything will be better.'_

That was why he'd done it, found the sharpest damn knife in the entire house because he hadn't known what else to do and brought it to the bathroom. Even then, he'd had a pretty morbid sense of humour, so he figured the blood would be easier to clean up if it was in a tiled room, rather than on the carpet or on the wooden floors or even the furniture. He had to at least _try_ to make his parents' job a little easier.

"But I… I didn't um… I guess I-I didn't cut deep enough anyway. All it made me do was p-pass out pretty quickly 'cause my blood pressure dropped lower t-than usual somehow, so I-I kinda fucked up the whole suicide attempt thing."

"Well, for the record, I'm glad you screwed up then," Lucy said meekly.

He gently squeezed her hand and pulled it down with his, resting them on his chest as he nodded slightly and smiled weakly up at her. "Yeah. Me too," he whispered. At the time, Bickslow hadn't exactly been the happiest person to find himself waking up and very much alive in a small hospital room with Caspian by his side. But once things started getting better, and he got away from all of that… He'd realised that he has glad he hadn't done it. He'd tried to, but it had failed, and he'd been glad.

It had been permanent solution to a temporary problem, and it was the easy way out for him. He didn't do that kind of thing. He put up with everything, no matter how fucking horrible it was, and his own attempt at killing himself had been him accepting that things wouldn't ever get better. He would always be that miserable, that lonely, and that there was just no point of being there.

But there had been. Because the point was that he realised he'd _wanted_ to be there. He wanted to be on that earth, and he wanted to _survive_ , not give up.

He'd wanted things to get better, and they had. And even if he hadn't really been truly happy for a long time after what had happened, he was then. He had Lucy, and he had Caspian, and he was beginning to really have the guild and his team – more than he had before – and he was happy. Things got better eventually, and right then as he looked up to Lucy, the one woman and only person he would love more than anything in the entire _universe_ , he was more than glad that all he had was a scar and he wasn't six feet underground with just a slab of concrete for no one to remember him by.

 _She_ was what made him happy, and she was the reason that he wasn't completely breaking down right then. She was his reason for still being there. "But um… But then Cas found me pretty quickly after I passed out, I guess, since he… Since he somehow found out what had happened w-with Dallas so he was coming to check up on me," Bickslow said with a shaky breath as Lucy's fingers curled into his hand and twined with his own. "So then I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks 'cause they wanted me talking to the psych and all, and then someone from the council turned up and made me prove that I had nothing to do with Dallas' death."

"They believed that it wasn't because of you though, right?"

Bickslow nodded. "Y-Yeah, they did. After that though…" He let out a sigh as he turned his gaze back up to the canopy of the bed above him. Then, "I ended up moving here when Cas did, and he opened up his store in the casino not that long after we moved here."

"So that was when you were still fourteen?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah. Everything was kind of sorted out before I turned fifteen," he replied. "That um… That photo at home that I mentioned before was actually taken the day before Dallas uh… Died." Even when everyone knew that his parents were scared of him, they still tried to make it seem like a normal family on the outside. Most people were smart enough to see through it, but that didn't matter. On the outside, he was happy, because he had his walls. But when he moved away from his parents and the town he'd grown up in, he could take down those walls. "But anyway. I lived here with Cas for a couple more years. I mostly just walked around a lot and still spent time by myself, but that still kind of suited me because I didn't like letting people in after what had happened. I was kind of happy though, so it was okay."

Lucy smiled. She could see that faintest bit of happiness returning to his crimson eyes. Even when she could tell that he wasn't as happy as she'd seen him just two weeks before, he was deep down, even when he was going through all the darkest moments of his past. He was letting her in and letting her see those moments though, and she was thankful for that, no matter how much it was hurting them both. It was a step for Bickslow, and she was proud of him.

"How did you end up joining the guild though?" Lucy asked what felt like her millionth question that night alone. "Since I remember you saying that you joined right before you turned seventeen."

"Uh… Well…" If admitted that he'd tried to kill himself once when he was fourteen had been terrifying, then telling her the next part was bound to be just a little awkward. Or entertaining. Bickslow could, at the very least, see the humour in his own life.

"Bicks… What now?" She frowned again though. "I thought getting away from your parents and your town would have made things better for you?"

"It did. It really did, because I never actually talked to my parents again until Mum sent me a letter when I was twenty-one, I think. But…" Lucy only rose an eyebrow when his mouth quirked up into a smirk. She had no idea what to expect, honestly, and Bickslow knew that. "Well, when I was sixteen, after I'd been living here for for a little over two years, I met this girl, right?"

"Oooh, a girl, huh?" Lucy giggled.

"Shocking, isn't it? But her parents actually owned the store next to Caspian's at the time, which used to be another jewellery story so they were always kind of competing," Bickslow explained as he folded his free arm behind his head on Lucy's lap. "And, you know, I'm a teenager, and she's kinda cute—"

"But I'm cuter, right?"

He looked up to her feigned pout and he fought not to laugh. "Oh, of course," he said matter-of-factly. "You're in your own league of being cute, Cosplayer."

"Knew it," she giggled. "Now tell me what happened with this girl."

Bickslow rolled his eyes. She was a bit of an idiot sometimes, but _oh_ was he thankful for just that short distraction, because even just hearing her laugh made Bickslow remember again that things had gotten so much better with time. "Okay, so, I kind of liked her, but not really because I was mostly just a horny teenager since I lived in a beach town and it's permanently summer here," Bickslow said, and a quiet chuckle slipped out of his throat when Lucy only rolled her eyes at him. "But anyway. We actually kind of started hanging out after a while since we were always seeing each other, and we got closer and I guess she kind of started liking me back after a while."

"Aww, so she was your girlfriend?"

"No, she wasn't," Bickslow groaned. "We just kind of liked each other and spent a lot of time together. I've told you before that I hadn't dated anyone before you, anyway."

"Oh yeah. But that was before I knew you had a _crush_ on someone," she crooned before she arched her brow curiously again before saying, "But is this a thing with you? You just pretend to be friends with a girl even though you're either liking her in a way where you're not _just friends_ , or you're madly in love with her?"

"You know, it might be." But did Bickslow want to find out if it was actually a _thing_ with him? No. He didn't. He was kind of hoping that Lucy would be the one he stayed with (even though he'd long accepted that he wouldn't ever care about someone even remotely closed to how much he cared about Lucy), and even right then, he hadn't been able to get that thought out of his head. Only doing his best to ignore it like he had the rest of the day, he returned to telling his, at that point, just slightly depressing story. "But even if I did like her, which I did eventually do after a while because she was kind of my only friend there apart from Cas, a few other people, and the babies – which I had four of, at that point."

"So I'm guessing that means you didn't have Puppu then?"

He nodded. "Right. But even if I did like her, I couldn't really get any closer to her because I didn't want her to get too close to me and kind of learn just how fucking horrible my life was. I was still miserable. Cas knew I didn't trust anyone, and I was still depressed even if I didn't show it around others, but that's just something that's always going to be there, and you know that."

"I do know that. And we're dealing with it," she said softly. It was something she'd learned about Bickslow months earlier, and it was something she was helping him deal with.

Bickslow smiled softly before continuing after taking a deep breath to calm his constantly frantic nerves. "But… After a while, I kind of started letting her actually get to know me," he said. "She knew about my magic, so that was good. She thought the babies were a little weird, but that was fine. Whatever. And uh… She knew that I wasn't exactly the most sociable of people, but I always tried to be fun around her because I thought it would make her like me more. I actually really liked her for a while, and I did actually want to ask if she wanted to be my girlfriend, but then that kind of got screwed up."

"What happened then?"

"Well, it's actually kind of a funny story."

"Are you sure? This doesn't exactly seem all that funny, Bicks…"

"It is. Well, sort of." Only the slightly strange dusting of crimson on his cheeks and the smirk he had on his lips had Lucy's mouth pursing. With just a barely audible chuckle, Bickslow said, "We slept together at some point. About a month before I joined the guild. I… Honestly have no idea how it happened. I'm pretty sure there was drinking involved, but somehow we ended up having sex from that."

Lucy's brow shot up again, and she looked to Bickslow seriously for a second. "How is that a funny story?"

"Because I was sixteen, a virgin until then, and I hadn't quite figured out how to completely control my Figure Eyes yet."

"Oh god."

"Yeah."

Lucy couldn't keep a straight face even if she'd tried, and she really hadn't tried to do so. She could only keep her laughter at bay for a few seconds before she was clutching at her stomach with her hand after ripping it from Bickslow's and falling sideways on the bed and forcing Bickslow to stop using her lap as a pillow. She really shouldn't have been laughing, because she felt just a little bad for Bickslow – oh, what a _wonderful_ time for his magic to be unstable. But it was just too damn hard not to laugh at. "O-Oh… Oh my god… Bicks…"

And with Lucy quickly turning into a ball of nothing but giggles, Bickslow couldn't stop himself from laughing with her, even if she was laughing _at_ him. Sitting up, he only hovered over the squirming mass of girl before heavily dropping down next to her and ending up in the weirdest mass of limbs. "Oh come on," he whined half-heartedly. "It's not that funny. It was pretty embarrassing, you know. How would you like it if your magic went all wonky whenever you came, huh?"

A high pitched squeal came from mouth then and Bickslow only rolled his eyes at her. She really wasn't supposed to find it _that_ funny. It had been a pretty unfortunate event for him, and it really had been embarrassing, even if he was able to laugh about it himself. "Oh y-you poor thing," Lucy squealed as more peals of laughter slipped past her lips. "I can't believe you—Wait… Hang on, it doesn't _still_ happen, r-right?"

"Are you really asking me that?" Bickslow laughed. She nodded, embarrassingly, and he shook his head lightly. "Trust me, you would have known by now if it was still an issue. Though… It has _almost_ happened a few times with you…"

"Say what now?"

He shrugged, and his tongue lolled from his mouth before quickly kissing the tip of her nose once she'd stopped being a giggling idiot and wasn't sort of rolling around anymore. "Usually when you do weird things that I'm still realising I shouldn't find that surprising sometimes."

"O-Oh… So…" She pulled both of her legs out from under Bickslow's where they were mostly tangled, and only hooked one over his hip before lacing her arms around his neck. "It only happens when it's really great then?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Good to know," she laughed quietly. "Now. What happens with this not-girlfriend of yours after that little incident?"

"Well, she freaked out, understandably," Bickslow explained again as he reached behind Lucy for one of the pillows and put it beneath their heads. "And then she stopped talking to me and completely avoiding me because she uh… She got really scared of my magic and she didn't want to be around me."

And just like that, the mood had returned to its sombre state with the hints of depression lingering in the foreground. "Oh. I'm sorry," Lucy whispered. She really could see why Bickslow was the way he was – or, why he'd been the way he'd been not that long ago. Literally everyone he'd ever let in and tried to trust had left him, and there was only so much of being abandoned time and time again before they're left only able to stare at the shattered pieces of who they'd been.

"Yeah, it sucked, like everything else," Bickslow said morosely. "I was sad for a little while because I did actually like her, and I was still kind of embarrassed and I was back to hating my magic. I wasn't really as miserable as I had been with Dallas, because that had been different, but it still hurt because she was just another person I'd thought would be around for a little while longer."

"And like I've said a million times before, and like I'll say another _billion_ times," Lucy smiled at Bickslow. "I'll always be around."

"Because you're different." She'd always been different, and that was what Bickslow had always known. She was different from everyone else – she was there when she promised to be; she was there when he needed her to be. "A few weeks later I guess," Bickslow continued again. "Cas came and told me about Fairy Tail. He knew what had happened, 'cause I'd told him, and he knew I was worried about my magic and I hated it all. Said a guild would be able to help me with it and all and there'd be more people like me, you know? Kids with kind of fucked up pasts and nowhere else to go. That kind of thing."

"Well, that's Fairy Tail for you. That's what we do best: make someone feel like they're safe and home."

He nodded, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a small smile. "Exactly. So, I eventually did end up going to check it out, just to see what it would be like. I remember, the first time I actually walked into the guild, I had a table thrown at me by a fire-breathing moron." He'd ducked, of course, but it still proved to be interesting. But oh, it had been a great way to see Fairy Tail in all its glory. A fire-breathing kid who would later become his girlfriend's best friend, a stripping kid who would also be his girlfriend's best friend, and a sword happy red-head fighting with the demon herself while everyone else just went on with whatever it was they'd been doing. Only chuckling along with Lucy for a moment, he said, "So then I ended up meeting with Master Makarov, and I eventually came back a few days later to ask if I could join the guild, then moved into this really horrible studio apartment and lived there for a couple of months. I still uh… I still had my walls and all, because after Dallas died it was just kind of something that happened because I realised that I didn't like who I was when I was meeting new people, so when I joined the guild, that's really when I had the opportunity to kind of really be the person that I thought everyone liked, you know?"

Lucy smiled. "I know."

Sighing, Bickslow shrugged and stared to the spare pillows piled up just behind Lucy. "And uh… That's basically it. Got a place with Laxus a couple months after I joined the guild, Ever and Freed joined the next year and we were all kind of around the same age so we got along, I guess. Helped that we'd all had issues in our past with people and our magic. But… But all of it is just… It's why I was the way I was and why I couldn't let you get close to me."

"I know," she said again.

"You're not…" He paused, trying to find the words as his eyes flicked to Lucy's, and he swallowed his fear back down to where it belonged and he quietly asked, "You're not mad at me or anything? Or… Or… Or judging me too harshly? I know that I—" Her hands moving to rest against his jaw and her lips on his cut him off, and he stared hopefully at the blonde right before him.

"I could never be mad at you Bickslow, and I would never, _ever_ judge you. Do you understand?" He nodded slowly on the pillow, and Lucy smiled. "You had a hard life – harder than I ever imagined – and I really do wish that you hadn't had to go through any of what you did as a child and when you were younger, because it hurts me to even think about how much it would have actually hurt you to go through that all."

"I just got used to it all after a while," Bickslow mumbled.

"But you shouldn't have had to in the first place, but you did, and I'm so sorry for that," Lucy said. "I'm sorry about your parents and what happened with your aunt, and I'm incredibly sorry about what Dallas did and about what happened with that girl. But I'm glad that you had Caspian on your side for everything, and I'm so, _so_ glad that you're even here today and I'm able to tell you that I love you, because I don't think I'd be telling anyone else that if you weren't here."

Just a short laugh slipped past his lips as he said, "You'd probably be telling someone like _Juvia_ , Lucy." _Or literally anyone else, because you could make anyone fall in love with you if you tried hard enough._

"Yeah, like _that_ would ever happen," Lucy scoffed. "She'd be too into Gray still anyway, and I'd just be stuck searching for world for my dream man, only to die miserably alone, because I wouldn't have had you to cry on at three in the morning and remind me that I wasn't as alone as I thought."

"Nah… I think you'd have been okay though. You'd have told your team about Aquarius eventually, and they'd have been there for you and you'd be happy again."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Oh, just shut up already," she laughed quietly as she gently flicked his forehead, right in the middle of the head of the dark blue figure across his face. "Can't you just let me tell you that I love you and I wouldn't love anyone as much I do you, and I'm really damn glad that you only passed out."

Each word that came from her mouth seemed to make the darkness and pain within his heart fade away just that little bit more, and the warmth only she could offer him every day was once again blooming in its place. "Mm-kay. Shutting up now." And closing the small space between them, his lips tenderly met hers in a slow kiss and his hand gripped her hip through the fabric of the shirt to push her onto her back, only to settle himself on half of her, and drop his head to bury his face in against her neck. She was, and always would be, the best pillow. She was warm and soft in all the perfect places, and he had come to really, _really_ love cuddling in the last few months, and right then, that was all he wanted to do. "But I love you too. Too much."

She smiled up at the canopy of the bed as her fingers went back to lightly running his hair, and quietly, she asked, "You know what I'm going to need to do tomorrow?"

"…What?"

"Give Caspian a giant hug."

"He really wouldn't be opposed to it."

"I wouldn't care if he was, to be honest," she laughed.

And so they stayed like that for a while, just lying together on the bed in the dark room with the occasional sound of the curtains shielding the open doors to the balcony flapping in the wind. They didn't even bother turning so they were the right way in the bed, or untangling themselves from the mess of sheets and pillows around them, not even when he pulled the babies from their 'rest' and let them settle themselves around them with Bickslow holding Pappa closest to him. All they did do, was stay in silence and stay awake, with neither one wanting to fall asleep just yet, even though it was getting closer to the dawn of the new day.

But then when Lucy could feel herself beginning to drift off anyway, and she was sure that Bickslow would be too, she only glanced down to where he was resting his head, and she quietly asked, "Are you okay?"

She'd asked it before, and his answer had been no. But right then, Bickslow knew that wasn't the answer he'd be giving her. He wasn't perfectly fine, but he wasn't _not_ okay either. He felt relieved, strangely, and he felt a whole lot happier than he'd been just an hour earlier… But he wasn't back to being his usual self quite yet. He would be, he hoped, but bringing everything from his past back up, the same things that he'd kept to himself for his entire life, had really made him remember in all too vivid detail just how much he'd hated things.

But it had also made him see just how much things had improved. He wasn't surrounded by people who hated him and were scared of him. He wasn't the same kid who was still learning how to control something he'd been born with the ability to do. He'd grown, and he'd grown a lot more in the last half a year with Lucy by his side.

He'd lost too many people he'd cared about and trusted. His parents, were still his parents, and they always would be. Bickslow had long since realised that things could have been a whole lot worse, and he'd had to be grateful for that, no matter how terrible his childhood had really been. He didn't regret moving to Akane Beach with his uncle and cutting every single tie he could with his parents. That had been something he had needed to do. Dallas, he still thought about from time to time. He often wondered if wherever he was, he was better. He wondered if he'd ending up becoming a lost soul a few times too.

But mostly, he just wondered if it had been worth it for him – if he'd somehow found what he'd wanted, if things could get better like that.

Bickslow didn't even doubt that things _could_ get better. You just had to wait, because everything took time. Dallas hadn't, but Bickslow had accepted that it was what his friend had wanted to do. He hadn't wanted to wait. He'd wanted it all to be over, and even if it really had hurt like hell to bear witness to it and lose someone who meant so much to him, Bickslow had had to accept that there wasn't anything he could have done. That was just Dallas. He always did what he wanted, and he'd done exactly that. That didn't make it any easier though.

But for Bickslow, that wasn't how things had improved. He'd stuck it out eventually, even though for a while, he really wished that he hadn't been. Everything eventually got better, and then they got worse for a little while, but then they just kept getting better…

And better.

And better.

And Bickslow was still getting better, even right then. But that was all for Lucy and because of Lucy.

But was Bickslow okay? Not yet. He still hoped he would be though, just like he still hoped that one day he'd be able to be the person that wasn't still afraid of most of the world. But with Lucy, he knew all of that would be possible, because when he had her by his side, nothing seemed quite as scary and he was a different person.

He was a better person.

Everything that was broken could always be fixed though, and everything would always get better, one way or the other. Bickslow would be okay again. And as he laid there on Lucy, he didn't have to think much about his answer, because it just came naturally. "Not yet, but I will be."

* * *

When they eventually woke up late the next morning, it was a brand new day for Bickslow. He realised that telling Lucy had been a great decision; letting her in that last little bit and tearing down the last remaining remnants of his walls had been what he'd needed to do. It had been hard, and it had hurt the both of them, but it had been worth it.

He wasn't so alone in the world anymore, not with Lucy, and even when she knew all about his stupid mistakes and everyone else leaving him for their reasons, she was still there. She was always there, and Bickslow was beginning to see that she would always be there.

He still wasn't fine, and he wouldn't be for a little while, but that was okay. Everything got better with time, and Lucy would give him that time. She knew well enough that his past and his family was something he would never willingly talk about and bring up in every day conversations, and she wouldn't bring them up herself, either. It was there, she knew about it, and that was all she needed. He had trusted her to see the part of him that he kept hidden from everyone again, and she was glad for that.

Now, all they had to do, was enjoy the rest of their holiday like they'd always planned to do. So joining Bickslow at the small table on the balcony after getting dressed for the day, she sat down in front of her brunch of scrambled egg croissants. "So," Lucy said as she reached for the pitcher of orange juice in the middle of the table. "What did you want to do today?"

Bickslow shrugged. "Whatever you want to do."

"Nope. We're not going to do that anymore."

"But I just don't mind what we do," Bickslow said as he watched the straw – that just happened to have a soul in it – spin around in the iced coffee in front of him. "Ever. I'm fine doing what you want to do."

"Well, do you ever think that maybe I want to do what _you_ want to do sometimes?" Lucy asked.

Bickslow looked up with an eyebrow raised. He was honest to god boring. He really had no problems with staying inside and lounging around in bed or on the lounge all day. All he'd ever really done for a long time is go to and from the guild and jobs, and his free time away from his team had always been spent sitting in his apartment and reading and talking to the babies. That's just what he'd always done, because he'd just never really had any hobbies or anything like that.

Lucy knew that though, and she knew that he really didn't mind in the slightest letting Lucy have the reins in practically all aspects of their relationship. He was perfectly happy doing whatever Lucy wanted, even if that was rarely just spending an entire day in bed and doing nothing but cuddling and watching movies and shows he shouldn't love as much as he did.

But even if she knew Bickslow had always had a disinterest in doing most things unless it was what she wanted to do, she was just a little tired of always being the one to decide what they did. Bickslow was the one who had lived in Akane Beach before, as Lucy had only just learned, so he was the one that knew what there was to do beside the usual touristy things.

Shrugging once again, Bickslow sighed in defeat. He knew Lucy wouldn't drop it – she was letting him do something that he truly wanted to do and wasn't just being dragged along for. "Uh, okay then," he mumbled, looking back to down to the iced coffee as the straw continued to spin around in the drink. "Maybe… We could go see Cas again later?"

"Yes! Oh, yes!" Lucy beamed. "I still need to go and give him a hug, after all."

"And after that…" He looked to the side and over the edge of the balcony and over the ocean. "We could go down to the beach. You could get horribly burnt and I could get even more tanned."

She arched a brow and her lips quirked as Bickslow sat back down. "You mean you don't actually burn? You just _tan_?"

"Uh-huh. You shoulda seen me when I lived here."

"Oh, _please_ tell me Caspian has photos. I'm dying to see how cute – and tanned – you were as a sixteen-year-old."

"He probably does somewhere, but I really just looked awkward and dorky," he answered with a quiet chuckle.

"Baby, you still look awkward and dorky," Lucy laughed. "You also just happen to be adorable, but I'm sure you were more adorable when you weren't an old man."

Bickslow rolled his eyes, and he got up from his chair just to quickly swoop down and pull Lucy from hers. "Those teenagers are a bad influence on you. _Matt_ in particular is a bad influence on you," he grumbled. Rhett and Kai weren't too bad (and neither was the shy one who had a stutter, but Bickslow had never been able to remember his name). It was just the blond devil who was a bad influence on his girlfriend.

"Aw, you're just mad that they out-drank you," Lucy giggled as her legs wound around his hips as he tried not to trip over the small coffee table in front of the lounge. "You're getting old, Bicks." Just two weeks earlier, when the teenagers had visited the guild for the second time, they'd only decided to get involved in one of the guild's many drinking games (it didn't help that everyone else coerced them into joining in the first place), and Lucy had the pleasure of watching her twenty-three year-old boyfriend pass out blind drunk in the middle of the guild while their new teenager friends laughed their asses off.

"I'm not getting old."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, If I am," He set her down on the edge of the bed and pushed her back onto it, and slowly climbed over her with a lecherous grin plastered on his face. "Then that just happens to mean you're into older guys," he murmured, lips and tongue tracing the contour of her jaw and down the column of her neck.

Lucy shrugged from beneath him, and stared up at the canopy of the bed with a smirk as Bickslow slowly continued working his way down over her clothes, and she argued, "But it also just means you're into younger girls, you perv."

"Shut up. You like it."

"You can't prove it."

He looked up with a wicked grin. "The fact you're in love with me is proof enough."

"I suppose so," she sighed. He really wasn't that bad… He was really only bad when it came to her now, so that was fine. He was mostly just adorable though, and she really didn't think she would ever find shyness an adorable trait. But on Bickslow, she did, even if she rarely saw it.

But before she had a chance to even point out that their brunch – that Lucy really wanted – was still sitting out on the balcony, apparently long forgotten by Bickslow, it was like a light bulb went off in her head. Right as he made his way down to the denim shorts she had on over her floral bikini bottoms, and hooked his fingers into each side over her hips. "Oh! I almost forgot!" Quickly, she sat up and pushed Bickslow off of her, and scrambled back to the edge of the bed and her feet. She could hear Bickslow groan into mattress as she quickly padded into the bathroom behind the divider, and shaking her head, she yelled, "Just go and eat something." There was plenty of time for that kind of fun later.

"What do you think I was going for?"

"I meant _food_ , Bicks," she laughed from where she stood before the wide counter.

"You taste better though."

Lucy looked up to the mirror in front of her just to see the smirk sitting on her lips in her reflection. "Well, why don't you just save the best for last then? There's a _pretty_ _good_ chance I'll still be here tonight, you know." In truth, Lucy just liked making Bickslow wait, and she liked doing so more than she should, at least. But sometimes, she really just needed a break from her adorable boyfriend, no matter how tempting he was.

Still though, even if she did need the odd break, what she didn't need a break of was a very, _very_ important pill – even if she did have a habit of skipping the odd one because of her insanely crazy schedule with the guild and taking jobs, and she really wasn't very good at taking it at the same time every day. But it was all fine anyway. She still didn't have a reason to worry about them having a baby any time soon.

One day, maybe, if they got there. But definitely not in the next six months. Or year. Bickslow wasn't ready for that, and she was most definitely not ready for that.

But when she practically emptied out her entire toiletries bag on the white stone counter, she began to worry just a tiny bit. She even placed each item back in, and took them all out again, just to make sure she hadn't missed the small foil packet. _Oh. Nothing to worry about, Lucy. It's probably just in your other bag._ Nodding to herself in agreement with her inner self's voice, she quickly turned and went back out to the other side of the divider and over to her suitcase.

From where Bickslow sat outside, having long given up on getting his girlfriend out of her clothes, he could only stare in confusion while slowly sipping his iced coffee as he watched Lucy begin to throw every single article of clothing she'd stuffed into her suitcase around the room. Why she was doing so, he had no idea, but he was thinking he didn't want to know why. He might live with a person of the opposite sex, but he really didn't understand what went through her head _all_ the time. Girls were… A _mystery_ , as the babies had whispered on more than a few occasions when they'd had the pleasure of witnessing Lucy do something just a little strange… Like cry at movies.

But what Lucy was doing then, Bickslow just really didn't think he wanted to know. He figured she was just being weird, a girl, and was no doubt just deciding to change her outfit again. Bickslow had come to learn she was very indecisive when it came to clothing.

When her suitcase was almost empty apart from a few things, Lucy really began to panic. Each pocket had been searched, each zip opened, and even her purse had been emptied out into the mostly empty suitcase. The half-empty foil packet with her birth control pills was nowhere to be found. "I knew I'd forgotten something!" she hissed as she began quickly putting everything back into her suitcase. "I just knew it."

Of course, it just _had_ to be the one thing she really shouldn't have forgotten. It seemed life was out to get her now.

But it was a problem, and as she made her way back out to the balcony to eat the brunch she was still really wanting to eat, she knew she had to tell Bickslow that. So she sat down, and looked up to Bickslow, who only stared at her with narrowed eyes over the top of his glass. "What is it?" he asked a little worriedly.

"Uh, well," Lucy began strangely nervously – she really didn't know why. "Turns out that I did actually forget to bring something with me, so I wasn't just being paranoid, thank you very much." _Ah, where's that satisfaction? I need that satisfaction!_

"So? What was it?"

"My birth control," she mumbled, and she tried so hard not to laugh when he scrambled to catch one of the totems that almost dropped down to the beach far below them when she caught him off guard. It wasn't exactly like it was shocking or anything.

He blinked slowly, and only stared at Lucy as she slowly sipped on her orange juice. Of all the things she could forget… Oh all the damn things. "Well… It's not really that big of a deal though, right?" He cleared his throat. "I mean, I don't know how those things work, but I mean… When we get back, you just start taking it again, right?" _Damn it. I probably should've made an effort to learn… Wait, no. That's weird. Fuck._ "And there's other forms of birth control anyway, so while we're here, it's still not that big of a deal…"

"Yes, that's right. And I know there's other methods, but, just to be on the safe side…"

"Oh, _please_ don't say it."

She couldn't keep the smile off her face. _Oh, there's the satisfaction!_ Though, it really hadn't come from where she'd thought it would. And, just to make Bickslow's worst dreams come true, she said, "No sex for a week. Or, two, really, just to be on the safe side."

He groaned as his head tipped back. "Oh, that is _so_ unfair." Why couldn't they just use condoms for those _two_ miserable weeks, huh? They were just as effective as her birth control. But nooo… No sex. At all. While they were on holiday in a beach town, and staying in the honeymoon suite. He could barely keep his hands off her as it was, but he was sure he was going to have a whole lot more trouble while they were still there.

"No, it isn't," Lucy insisted as she picked up her knife and fork from the napkin. She was honestly finding it more entertaining than she should, because she really didn't think Bickslow would react the way he did. "It's just two weeks. We'll survive."

* * *

 **If I offended anyone with any of this, I apologise. As someone who has dealt with depression for a long time though, I know that things can get incredibly hard sometimes, and even if there doesn't seem like there's anyone to talk to sometimes, there always is. And please, reach out to someone you trust and can talk to if you ever feel like suicide is the right solution, because it never is... Honestly.**

 **Now... I know a lot happens in these last two (and three) chapters. I know there's not much of Caspian in this, but hopefully there'll be some more of him in the last couple of chapters. I'm still not quite sure on whether or not he'll be coming back. What do you guys think? Also... Yeah, that's not the last of the teenagers. They'll be back again for sure, and it won't just be a mention. Don't worry. And, yeah... The end... Just... It needed to be there. So it was. I'm predictable.**

 **As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Maybe. I know it wasn't that happy, but oh well... It was always coming. This story was always going to be full of angst, after all (it's me we're talking about. Come on. I can't do anything without having a bit of angst).**

 **Until next time though.**

 **\- April**


	16. (VI) Oblivious

**So quite a bit happens in this chapter... And there's one part I'm apologising for. I don't even know what was going through my head when I decided to write it. I think my brain checked out during that, to be honest. Oh well.**

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 14: FLUFFY**_  
 _ **OBLIVIOUS**_

* * *

Bickslow had been about to sit down on the lounge with one of the books Lucy had recommended he read when there was a knock at his door. He didn't get many visitors, because not that many people actually knew where he lived. He didn't mind though; he preferred it that way, anyway.

With Lucy having moved in though, he was slowly (already) getting used to someone coming around each day. Most of the time, it was Natsu, but Natsu never knocked. If it wasn't Natsu, it was Erza and Wendy, and if not those two, it was Levy. Levy was really the only sane one that ever came over, and she was the only one that Bickslow would gladly welcome into their home. And Wendy, of course. Wendy was a sweetheart and she was like the kid sister he never had or wanted.

But Lucy and her team had left for a job early that morning, so Bickslow knew it wouldn't be anyone from Team Natsu outside his door. He highly doubted it would be Wendy since it was nearly ten, and Levy was probably off somewhere with her nose in a book, just like Bickslow had wanted to be because he didn't really have anything else to do.

Setting the book aside and picking himself up from the lounge again, Bickslow slowly padded over to the door and flicked on the main lights before unlocking the door and pulling it open. He half expected Laxus or maybe even Gajeel, but definitely not Natsu (and Happy), Erza, and Gray, all holding up a very pale Lucy.

"What the…" He quickly reached out to steady the blonde who was barely able to even stand on her own two feet. "What the fuck happened?" Bickslow demanded.

Erza closed the door behind her after they all walked in, each of them watching Lucy through concerned eyes. "We're not too sure," Erza replied.

"She said she was feeling a little dizzy this morning after we left," Gray continued, and Bickslow only blinked and did a double take when he saw that he'd somehow managed to lose his shirt and pants at some point between walking in the door and sitting down. "And then she passed out earlier tonight."

" _Passed out_?" Bickslow looked down to Lucy who was using him as a way to support herself, because she really just didn't have the energy right then to stand on her own. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

Lucy sighed and nodded against his chest. "Mm-hmm. Perfectly fine," she mumbled. She looked up and gave Bickslow a weak but reassuring smile, and tried to stand on her own just a little bit more. "I think I just overworked myself a little. No need to worry about me." Lucy knew Bickslow would still worry though, and that was okay to an extent. She would just need to find a way to prove that was actually fine – albeit a little dizzy still, but she was fine.

She hadn't had much sleep the night before as it was, so she'd figured that had something to do with her not feeling the best that day. She also definitely hadn't had enough to drink, considering they'd spent almost their entire day hiking up a mountain in the direct sunlight to get to where they needed to go. And, just to top it off, she'd overexerted herself by keeping two of her spirits' gates open for longer than she was used to. Passing out hadn't been a big deal. She'd just been completely and totally exhausted.

"I think I'm just going to head to bed though," she said meekly as she pulled herself away from Bickslow to steer herself down the hall. She only made it a few steps before she was losing her footing and Natsu was catching her and keeping her upright. "Ooookay… I think I might actually need some help getting there though…"

Natsu nodded, and wrapped his arm around her. "I've got you, Luce."

She collapsed onto the edge of the bed once it was close enough and sighed into the soft blankets. She was sure she could fall asleep right then and there, despite still wearing her boots and her normal clothes. So maybe she wasn't entirely fine, and that was hard for Lucy to admit to even herself because it was always hard admitting that she maybe needed a bit of help, but she was still sure that her dizziness and fainting was somewhat warranted. She'd survive, that was for sure.

All she needed was a bit of rest and her giant pink ladybug to cuddle. Or Bickslow, really. But she preferred the ladybug.

Sighing again when she felt Natsu sit down on the edge of the bed next to her, only watching her through worried eyes as Happy sat behind her, Lucy blindly reached out to pat Natsu's arm. "I'm sorry for making you all worry," she said quietly as she opened up her eyes again.

Natsu smiled. "Don't be."

"But I am," she insisted. "At the very least, you all could have gone back to get the reward for the job instead of making a big deal about getting me home."

"You're more important than a reward, Lucy, and you would have done the same thing if it had been any of us."

She smiled softly. "But think of all that fish you and Happy could have bought with your share."

Natsu looked to Happy then, and as his expression wavered, perhaps even regretting not going back for the reward, Lucy was sure she heard the Exceed's stomach rumble from behind her. But then Natsu was grinning back down to Lucy and he said, "Nah, you're more important than fish, Luce."

"Aye!" Happy agreed.

Lucy laughed quietly as he gently stood, and folded her arm under her head. "I'll take your word for it. But thanks for bringing me home though. I would've survived not coming home tonight, but thank you."

"No worries." Natsu smiled again as Happy jumped down from the bed and slowly followed Natsu to the door. "Get some rest, Luce."

She nodded as another tired sigh escaped, and she closed her eyes.

She wasn't sure how long it had been before she heard Bickslow coming into the room and turning on the lamps on either side of the bed; it must have only been a few minutes though. Her eyes opened slowly when she felt the zips on her boots being pulled on, and Lucy tried her best to move her legs accordingly so Bickslow could pull off her tall boots.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked softly as he helped her to her feet.

Lucy nodded. "I'm okay," she whispered. "I'll get some rest and I'll be all good again in the morning."

Bickslow frowned, but he knew better than to argue with her. He just had to believe that she was fine and that he didn't have a reason to really worry. Not yet, anyway. But he sure as hell hoped he wouldn't have an actual reason to worry about her any time soon, too.

So instead, he only helped her change and then get her into bed so she could get the rest she desperately needed. And of course, he made sure that her giant pink ladybug that he'd been replaced by was within her reach. Within hours of winning it at the theme park in Akane Beach, the pink ladybug had become her new favourite thing to cuddle in bed. The only time he hadn't rolled over in the last nearly two weeks they'd been home and not gotten a face full of ladybug had been when Lucy was taking another job, or he wasn't even there at all. It was just a little concerning that his girlfriend would rather sleep with a stuffed animal than him.

* * *

It had been a week since Lucy fainted. Well, since the first time she had, anyway. First it had been on the mission she had taken with her team, the second time just a few days later when they'd been at the guild and Bickslow had been talking to his own team about what job they could take. Not only did Lucy have her far too overprotective (then) boyfriend worrying over her, but she had the entire guild too.

Of course, she still insisted she was fine though, even if she had spent the better part of the last two days curled up in bed with her ladybug _and_ the giraffe. Bickslow was so close to dragging her to a doctor to find out what was wrong with her, but he was stopping himself, because if Lucy believed she was fine, then that was what he had to believe. If he hadn't known any better, he would have just thought it was _that_ time again, but it wasn't. Or at least, he really didn't think it was, but it wasn't exactly like he really wanted to know the exact details about that kind of thing. That, he just left to Lucy, along with the entire birth control issue.

But that was sorted out. Well, he thought so, anyway. But it wasn't exactly like they'd lasted those two weeks where sex was a no-go either. They'd tried, but it just hadn't worked. At all. She wasn't pregnant though. Aside from not even considering that it was possible (surely it wouldn't have happened that quickly), they weren't even talking about it. They were going on with their lives as normal – getting back into the swing of things with the guild and jobs, Bickslow trying not to drag his girlfriend to a doctor, Lucy staying in bed practically all day and telling herself and Bickslow that it was just a nasty stomach bug that was making her unable to keep anything down.

That was what Bickslow worried about the most though: that she wasn't eating, and she was barely drinking. It had only been two days, but that was almost too long for Bickslow. She didn't even look well, and he didn't really know what to do to make her feel better. He didn't even know if there was anything he _could_ do.

On the third day, Lucy actually managed to get out of bed though. She didn't go to the guild, because she still didn't quite have the energy too, but when Bickslow got back after running a few errands – bills, groceries, picking up something for lunch on the off chance that Lucy would actually be up – she was sitting on the lounge with the babies on her lap and her shoulders, and slowly sipping from a glass of water. But just seeing her actually out of bed made Bickslow so happy. Maybe she was getting better.

Closing the door behind him, Bickslow looked over his shoulder towards the blonde on the lounge as he dropped everything to the counter. "Hey, feeling better today?" he inquired, hopeful that she was.

Lucy nodded and smiled softly. "A little, yeah," she replied. "Still feel a little dizzy whenever I get up and I still don't exactly feel stellar, but I'm better."

"I'm glad. Do you want something to eat? I stopped by Eight-Island on my way home."

A little bit of light returned to her dull eyes when Bickslow held up one of the bags he'd placed on the bench, and she nodded again. "I guess so. I'll try to eat, at least," she laughed weakly. She didn't feel like eating all that much, but she would try to get something in her stomach. She couldn't just not eat, even if anything she'd tried to consume in the last couple of days had just come straight back up.

But when her go-to comfort food was on the menu, Lucy would really do her best to try and eat at least a little of it.

With Bickslow placing the large paper bag on the coffee table, Lucy began to pull out everything out while Bickslow quickly sorted out the groceries. Burger, fries, nuggets, enough sauce to make Blue Pegasus' Christina fall out of the sky. He knew exactly how to cheer her up when she needed it, and when she'd been miserably stuck in bed, something as simple as having her amazingly perfect boyfriend bringing her lunch was all she needed.

Just… Without the mayo.

Ordinarily, she loved it. Especially on burgers and sandwiches. She would probably sit there with a spoon and eat it from the jar like it was chocolate and hazelnut spread, if it wasn't weird and hadn't made her sick the one time she'd actually been stupid enough to try it.

But just the smell of it on her burger – the one she could probably eat every single day of the year and die very happy, if not overweight – had her feeling queasy again, and her nose crinkled as she held it out a little ways from her. Lucy was just a little disappointed too, because she really did love her Eight-Island burgers with mayonnaise. _Oh well. I'll just have to wait until I'm better to eat what I usually do._

With that thought, Lucy got up from the lounge and padded over to the kitchen to grab a plate from the dish rack and a knife from the drawer. Bickslow only watched curiously as she began to disassemble the burger on the plate and scrape off the copious amounts of mayonnaise that had been on one bun. He had never seen her turn down that much mayo in his entire life, and honestly, he was a little confused. "Uh… Did I order the wrong thing somehow or…?"

Lucy shook her head, and continued to try and get as much of the mayonnaise off of the bun as she could. "Nope. The smell of it is just making me feel sick again." She smiled sweetly before quickly rinsing off the plate and placing it in the sink, and then she was going back over to the lounge to make herself comfortable once again.

It was really just another one of those times where Bickslow knew he couldn't really question it. He had to just be grateful that she was out of bed and looking a little better that day and eating a little bit.

* * *

Bickslow was suddenly woken up in the middle of the night when Lucy decided to climb over him quickly just to get to the bathroom next to the bedroom. Apparently, getting up and walking around the bed just hadn't been an option for whatever reason, so that left Bickslow alone in a bed with a giant pink ladybug by his head while the rest of him was tangled up in the sheets.

When he realised just why she was getting up in the middle of the night and rushing to the bathroom, Bickslow slowly pulled himself out of bed and made for the kitchen. He came back down to the hall with a glass of cool water in one hand just a few moments later, and gently pushed the bathroom door that was ajar open all the way. At that point, Lucy was only sitting on the floor by the door, slumped against the wall, and it broke Bickslow in ways he hadn't thought possible to even see her like that.

She just didn't look well anymore – she was pale, exhausted, the light in her eyes had faded, and she'd lost enough weight in the space of just a week for Bickslow to notice. Bickslow honestly didn't know who the last nearly two weeks had been harder on, either. Either Lucy, who only seemed to have gotten progressively worse over the last few days specifically – enough to miss Yukino's bachelorette party that same night – or for himself, who had had to watch her get to the point where she had barely left their bedroom in four days.

And it hurt so much more when the one thing he wanted to do was also the one thing he couldn't do. Something was so very wrong and it terrified Bickslow that he didn't know just what it was that was wrong; all he wanted was to know what had Lucy so ill. He hadn't been able to stop his mind from going to dark places over the last two weeks and few days in particular where she just got so much worse. More than once he'd worried about just what it all meant – why Lucy was sick – and more than once, Bickslow had had to remind himself that it wasn't as bad as he thought; that it was just him being the pessimist he'd become long ago and that he wasn't going to end up losing her.

That was the one thing he wouldn't ever deal with. He wanted to spend years, even decades with her, not just months. He wasn't, and he would never be ready to lose her and be alone again.

But when she didn't get better and he saw her in such a state, that was all Bickslow was able to think about, regardless of the fact that he hated that he did at all.

Crouching down in front of her, he lifted a hand to tuck the errant strands of damp hair behind her ear. "Lucy," he said softly.

She swallowed and grimaced at the vile taste in her mouth, and her eyes remained closed as she hoarsely replied, "Please don't say it."

Of course she knew what Bickslow wanted to say, but he'd sat by and watched her get worse and worse for long enough. He couldn't do that anymore, and it was because he cared about her so much that he was saying it. "You really need to be going to see a doctor. Like, now." He would physically drag her to the hospital if he had to.

"No, Bickslow," Lucy groaned. "I don't want to—"

"I don't care if you don't _want_ to," he interrupted her, and at the change of tone, Lucy opened her tired eyes to look to Bickslow in surprise. He almost rarely raised his voice, not that he was then, but it was enough of a change that Lucy was seeing just how much it was bothering him. "You _need_ to. Something is wrong and I hate seeing you like this."

"Nothing is wrong."

"Lucy, you're stubborn and I love you because of it, but you're also a terrible liar. You know something is wrong. You're not well."

She shrugged, and only looked down to her lap so she wasn't looking at his knowing smile. So Lucy might have been acutely aware that maybe something was wrong with her, and she was most definitely aware that she was quite unwell if she had to be perfectly honest, but that didn't mean Lucy was going to completely accept it. No, she was stubborn, like Bickslow said. She didn't want to believe that it was anything serious, like she expected Bickslow to be worrying about, because she liked dealing with things on her own.

Her reasoning, though, was that it was just a particularly nasty dose of the flu, or some form of it, at least. It was nothing she needed to go and see a doctor about.

Holding out his hand as he stood, he gently pulled Lucy to her feet, then softly said, "I know you don't want to go to a doctor, but at this rate, I'm probably going to worry myself to death. Seriously, you're making me stress so much about you randomly just dying one day that I'm pretty sure I found a grey hair this morning. _Grey_."

"You did not," Lucy said, a watery laugh escaping.

"Okay, maybe not," Bickslow admitted. He reached for the glass that he'd placed on the edge of the counter, then added, "But if you're not going to let me drag you kicking and screaming to the hospital right now, then can you at least consider going to see a doctor in the next few days if you don't get better?" That was really all Bickslow could hope for. He would never make her do something that she really did not want to do – and that included dragging her to a hospital in the middle of the night, even though he really did want to – but he just wanted to make sure that Lucy was okay.

Maybe it really was just a bad case of the flu or something and her body was having a harder time fighting it, but it really wouldn't hurt to know, just because he was so worried about it being something far worse.

Lucy nodded. "Only if I don't get better," she repeated, and Bickslow sighed in defeat as he finally handed her the glass of water. Except, as soon as Bickslow let go of it and it was in Lucy's hand, it was just as quickly slipping and falling towards the floor and shattering on the floor between their feet.

Lucy hissed in pain when shards of glass sliced her foot, and despite her lack of strength to barely even stand up herself, she was jumping up slightly to try and get out of the pile of glass she was standing in. Bickslow's arms almost instinctively wrapped around her when she did to hold her up from the ground, and he looked down to the pile of broken glass in the pool of water that he'd stepped back from, and to the long and broken up cut that started in the middle of her shin and went down to wrap across the top of her foot. How she managed to get her leg cut in the process, Bickslow had no idea, but it didn't matter.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. Carefully, with Lucy beginning to whimper quietly, he stepped over the mess on the floor and then crossed back into the bedroom from the hall and set her down on the edge of the bed. As he went back and forth between the bed and the bathroom to grab some towels and the kitchen for a bowl of water, Bickslow mumbled, "I don't think it's bad enough that you'll need stitches, but shit, Lucy. Does it hurt much?"

"It just… Stings a little," Lucy answered.

She leant back as Bickslow sat down on the floor in front of her and brought her foot to rest on his knee, and she reached for the pink ladybug that was in the middle of the bed to hug it to her chest. She winced every now and then as he quietly and gently cleaned her wounds, the white hand towel now pink and as stained as the towel on the ground. Each time she made any sort of noise, he mumbled an apology. If he could make the alcohol sting less, he would, but there were some things that not even Bickslow could do.

It was only as he reached for the bandages and gauze from beside him did Bickslow realise just how similar the situation felt to something that hadn't happened all that long ago. "This feels vaguely familiar," he said as he glanced up for a moment. Less than a year earlier, Bickslow could remember sitting in front of Lucy and bandaging up her hand from when she'd been cleaning up the glass she'd dropped in her old apartment. "When I came to your apartment in the middle of the night and you cut your hand then."

Lucy smiled weakly as she lifted her hand, just to look to the barely visible scar across her hand. "Yeah, I guess it does," she whispered. Even back then, he'd put up with her stubbornness, and once again, he was there to help her stay in one piece. "You know, I…"

He looked up again when she trailed off, and his brow furrowed when he saw that something was holding her back. "What is it?" he asked.

"I used to like… Pain," Lucy admitted.

Bickslow's eyebrow shot up and his lips quirked. "What? So you used to be a bit of a masochist?" he joked.

"N-No!" she spluttered quickly before continuing softly, "Just… I used to like feeling pain and getting hurt, because it distracted me from everything else. Even when I cut my hand, it made me forget just how much everything else sucked." Of all the things she had told Bickslow, she had never once told him that. She had never once told him that she really did think that each time she'd gotten herself hurt over those first few months after losing Aquarius really might have been intentional, but that was what she told him right then.

"I can understand that." If anything, Bickslow understood that all too well – when things became so dark and everything hurt so much that even physical pain was a _comfort_. But even if he understood that, it didn't mean he liked it, especially if Lucy had known that feeling, even if he knew that that wasn't how things were for her right then. Things were different now. "But a lot has changed since then."

Lucy nodded, and smiled again as he finished up with the bandages. "So much has changed," she agreed. "Everything has changed for the better, and I couldn't be happier." Well, she probably could be a lot happier, considering the circumstances, but things were great.

In less than a year, so much had changed, and Lucy never would have imagined things turning out how they had. But even if she hadn't imagined her life turning out that way, she wouldn't change anything. Not a single bit of it. Because maybe, just maybe, things wouldn't have turned out the way they had otherwise. Bickslow wouldn't have been there to piece her back together when she was a broken mess, and she wouldn't have been able show Bickslow that there was someone in the world who he could truly trust.

She was happy with the way things were and how much everything had changed, and she knew that Bickslow was too.

* * *

"Morning, beautiful."

Lucy smiled as Bickslow kissed her cheek, and as his arm draped over her waist, she curled up in his embrace and against his chest. It was still too early to open her eyes, or even move. It didn't help that she was worried that moving would only make her want to throw up, and right then, she wasn't feeling terrible, and that was a great feeling considering what her last few weeks had been like. "Good morning, _handsome_ ," she whispered.

"Are you feeling better this morning?" Bickslow asked, pulling the loose strands of her long hair back behind her ear as he sat up on one elbow.

"I don't feel like death," Lucy answered tiredly. "But… I'm sure I will later today." She always did, and she was really beginning to just accept and get used to the fact that most of her days only ended up with her curled up in bed with her pink ladybug and her rainbow giraffe. It sucked, but she was trying her hardest to put off seeing a doctor. The only reason Bickslow hadn't actually dragged her to see one like he wanted to was because some days were better than others.

Some days she only felt a little queasy. Others, she really didn't want to get out of bed or move. It was always hard to tell in the mornings just how her days would play out, but it was most commonly the latter.

"Well, I'm sure Yukino will understand if you can't make it to her wedding," he said softly. It was still early, and they didn't have to be at Sabertooth until the afternoon so they still had a while before they'd (or Lucy would, apparently) have to get ready to leave. But a lot could happen in a few hours. Over the last few weeks, Bickslow had seen her go from feeling somewhat fine and decent one minute, to just wanting to curl up in a ball the next and sleep the rest of the day away. Or, spend it curled up in the bath. He'd seen that once, too.

Plus, if Lucy was sick enough that she wasn't able to attend her friend's wedding, then maybe it would be just what needed to happen so that Bickslow would finally be able to convince her to go see a doctor. He really was constantly worrying about her, but Lucy still refused to go and see one, even when she'd said she would if she didn't get better. She wouldn't even let Wendy or Porlyusica look over her, and it was driving him insane.

"Nope. We're going." Lucy wasn't going to miss Yukino's wedding for anything. She was a bridesmaid, after all. She had to go. She turned in Bickslow's arms, and settled herself comfortably against his chest once again until she had her ear over his heart and his arms around her again. He was warm, and even if she preferred her ladybug, Bickslow was still her favourite cuddle buddy. "Worst case scenario," she began again, her words barely audible from where she was. "I'll go and get some anti-nausea medicine from the pharmacy later and hope that they help."

"If you say so," he sighed. There really wasn't much Bickslow could do, and he knew it. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried though, because he had. He'd tried everything he could think of to make her feel better – from letting her sleep the entire day to bringing her anything she could actually stomach to eat. Not even her usual comfort food was working anymore. All Bickslow did was made sure she was eating and drinking enough so that she wasn't getting worse, and even that was hard to do. He still tried his best though. Tilting his head so he had his cheek resting on top of her head, Bickslow quietly asked, "Are you going to be getting out of bed any time soon?"

"Unlikely."

"Not hungry?"

Lucy shrugged, and she kept her eyes closed while she remained curled up next to Bickslow. "Kinda, I suppose," she mumbled. She rarely felt like eating, and even when she did she could barely keep anything down. Right then though, a piece of toast didn't sound half bad. Just… Not right then. "I don't wanna move though."

"Breakfast in bed then?" Bickslow suggested.

"But then _you'd_ move and I don't want you to move." She tried to get herself closer to him while remaining in her little ball and only sighed happily again when he began to lightly trace up and down her spine through her singlet. "You're warm and soft and I'm comfortable and just really want to cuddle right now," she mumbled.

Bickslow chuckled and quickly kissed the top of her forehead before beginning to pull himself away from her. "We can cuddle later. I need to go get something to eat though."

She whined and tried to keep a hold of his shirt, but it seemed to only make Bickslow laugh all the more. Even if she loved how warm his laugh sounded sometimes, it was just annoying her then. "Noooo," she moaned into the pillow when he was finally free and all Lucy could do was grab her ladybug to curl up around instead. "Starve for a little bit longer." Why couldn't he just stay in bed for a little while longer? Cuddling was a nice way to start the day in Lucy's opinion, and especially on that day.

She was in a good mood that day, despite how she could feel her stomach rolling and making her life a living hell. But she was in a good mood because one of her closest friends was getting married that afternoon, and, it meant she'd been with Bickslow for six months already. It wasn't a big deal, but it was a nice thought to Lucy and it made her smile when she thought about what things would be like and where they'd be when another six, twelve, or even eighteen months had gone by.

Lucy wanted to be with Bickslow. That much was clear to her. She couldn't see anything driving them apart any time soon, so she doubted it happening. They were good together, and everything that needed to be there, was. The trust, the joy, the feeling of being _safe_. And to Lucy, all of that meant a lot, even though they weren't necessarily big things. Bickslow was her friend as she was to him, and there wasn't anywhere Lucy would rather be every morning and at the end of each disappointing day. They worked together because they understood each other; they understood each other when no else could.

So surely it wasn't a crime if Lucy just really wanted to cuddle with her adorable, loving, far too kind Seith mage of a boyfriend. Apparently it was. Or, really, food just happened to be more important than her companionship.

But maybe it was for the best that Bickslow wanted to go make breakfast, because suddenly, Lucy couldn't take her stomach protesting its entire existence anymore, and she was quickly covering her mouth with one hand while disentangling herself from the sheets and strewn blankets, and rushing to the bathroom. By that point, Lucy really was beginning to wonder if she could go see a doctor, but she really just did not want to. She wasn't overly fond of hospitals or doctors, and she was worried about the myriad of tests they'd probably run on her to find out just what had been causing her to come close to hating herself over the last few weeks.

She could think about actually going to see a doctor after she'd seen Yukino get married. That came first.

* * *

It wasn't surprising to Lucy that Bickslow had found himself sitting at a table with most of the Dragon Slayers once the actual ceremony was finished, and it certainly hadn't been surprising to her that he'd already made it clear he was probably not going to be moving much.

It was Bickslow's first time attending a wedding, but it had become clear to him incredibly quickly that he wasn't one who loved weddings – unlike Mira who had been invited along with the majority of Fairy Tail.

Lucy was fine with that though, so she didn't pressure him to do much. She was really just happy that he'd chosen to leave his visor at home for the afternoon. So while Lucy spent most of her time catching up with Yukino at the reception and getting to actually know Macbeth, Bickslow spent most of his time sitting and drinking.

The only problem with that though was that he really did spend more time sitting and drinking, and not actually talking. Cobra, when he wasn't being told to socialise and be somewhat polite to his guild mates by Midnight or Meredy, was really just talking to Laxus and Gajeel. And what it was they were talking about, even though they were literally sitting right next to him, Bickslow had no idea. Though every time they only turned their attention back to him for a brief moment and Bickslow saw their wicked and knowing smirks, Bickslow shivered.

They were terrifying when they did that, and each time it happened, Bickslow found himself not wanting to know what they were talking about less and less. Although when he realised that they were spending an incredible amount of time watching Lucy (and that was saying something, since Bickslow had been watching her all night. Even through the ceremony, he'd only been watching her and not the actual bride and groom), he began to worry just a little bit. He knew something was slightly off from the way the three of them seemed to be making a point of making their conversation as vague as possible to Bickslow, but Bickslow was really just deciding not to think on it too much.

He just kept telling himself that it was nothing and that his friends weren't lunatics.

When Bickslow saw Natsu making his way towards the table where he was sitting and only looking like he was actually using his brain and thinking about something (or maybe it was concern? Bickslow couldn't tell with Natsu sometimes), he internally rejoiced. Bickslow really just wanted someone to talk to since the dragons seemed to be talking _about_ him at that point, and he really didn't feel like going and finding Lucy either. Though a quick scan around the room before Natsu got there only had Bickslow guessing that Lucy was probably off pretending that literally every single type of food on one of the other tables for people to choose from and help themselves wasn't making her sick. For some reason though, she was really liking mini marshmallows that evening. Where she'd gotten them from, Bickslow had no idea (along with everyone else there), but he wasn't going to question it. If the girl wanted to eat marshmallows, she could eat all of them in the entire world, for all he cared. Of course, not everyone seemed to share that opinion though. Laxus and Gajeel had just gawked at her when she'd been sitting down with Bickslow and eating a bag of them at some point just after the ceremony, and Mira had only walked past giggling. What that was about, Bickslow didn't understand, but he'd come to realise by that point of the night that were were plenty of things that made no sense.

But Natsu though, Bickslow never thought he would be happy to see Natsu coming towards him. The guy was a moron ninety-nine percent of the time and sometimes Bickslow really didn't love the fact that he was constantly in their apartment, but he'd come to accept that he was really just going to have to start actually getting along with him at some point. Lucy was always going to be friends with him, and, well… Bickslow wanted to always be with Lucy. That just meant coming to deal with how her friends were a little odd and mostly had no moral compass.

The conversation between the evil trio of slayers seemed to come to a halt right as Natsu came up to the table. "Hey, Natsu," Bickslow said, ignoring how worried Cobra suddenly looked before he whispered something to Laxus and Gajeel and their own faces seemed to pale slightly. "What's up?"

"I wanted to ask about Lucy," Natsu began, and the strange concern in his tone actually made Bickslow worry. Usually he was direct with everything, but he almost seemed to be making sure he was careful. And then there was the fact that he was talking to him and not actually Lucy.

But Bickslow wasn't the only one worrying though. Natsu was actually worrying too, because he was completely and totally convinced that his best friend that wasn't Happy, was dying. Or at the very least she was really sick, because something was quite clearly wrong with her, and Natsu just wanted to know what it was and why she hadn't told him. But if he didn't know, then Bickslow would surely know. Whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, Bickslow was the one that knew Lucy best, and if she really was sick, then Bickslow would know about it.

"Oh? What about?" Bickslow asked.

"How long has she had a heart—"

Before Natsu could even finish his sentence, he suddenly had the other three slayers all piling on top of him. First Cobra, who only made a point of pressing Natsu's face into the ground so he couldn't be understood, then Laxus, and then Gajeel who only grinned wickedly and strangely suspiciously. Bickslow only stared at the pile of Dragon Slayers before him while trying to figure out if it was just _National Pick on Natsu Day_ or something. That would make sense, considering every single Dragon Slayer – first, second, or third generation – that they knew of was in the one room.

Cobra had been just hoping for Natsu to finally use his brain and just turn around and walk away, but it hadn't happened. And as much as he liked seeing chaos as well as being the cause of it, this was a certain type of chaos he had to try and prevent. That just meant getting Natsu to shut his mouth so he didn't say something he had so totally wrong.

She didn't have a heart _problem_ , like Natsu was so totally convinced. What he'd apparently heard while resting his head on Lucy's lap on the train ride there was not something he needed to be worried about. Bickslow did, and Lucy did, but no one else did. Not really, anyway. Natsu could worry about his precious blonde after the oblivious morons had done _their_ worrying. Until then though, they just had to keep their mouths shut, and that included Natsu. So quietly and as simply as Cobra could, knowing exactly what was running through Natsu's mostly empty head, he explained what they'd already deducted over the course of the evening (or the last week in Laxus' and Gajeel's case), and reminded him that by under no circumstances was he to talk to or tell Lucy or Bickslow about what he knew.

But Bickslow wasn't aware of what was going on _beneath_ Laxus and Gajeel. "How long has she had a heart?" Bickslow repeated, and he chuckled more to himself than anything as he picked up his drink again. "I'm pretty sure she was _born_ with one." Trust Natsu to ask something as silly as that.

"Oh! Is Natsu under there?!"

Bickslow turned just to see an over-excited blond come rushing up to the dragon pile with a less than enthused raven-haired man following him. Natsu managed to get an arm out from under the pile and make some sort of strangled noise. And just as quickly as the three had piled on top of Natsu in the first place, Sting was laughing like the child he was at heart and throwing Rogue onto the pile before _diving_ onto the top of it himself.

It had started as a way to get Natsu to keep his mouth shut, but Sting just had no idea. To him, it was just a pile of Dragon Slayers he could jump on! The only thing going through Rogue's head at that exact moment though was that no one should ever let Sting have anything containing sugar or alcohol ever again.

"Wendy! Wendy!" Sting shouted across the room, only drawing even more attention to himself and the rest of them. Hearing her name being shouted over and over, the youngest of the Dragon Slayers finally came over just to investigate, and Lucy followed closely behind her with a bowl of mini marshmallows in her hand again. "You should hop on!" Sting suggested. He was really the only one excited about it other than Gajeel. Natsu and Cobra though… Supporting Laxus' weight as well as everyone else's… Well, they were really suffering at that point, but Cobra was enjoying the fact that Natsu was being crushed too.

"Is that Natsu at the bottom?" Lucy asked while grabbing another marshmallow absentmindedly. Bickslow nodded, and Lucy arched an eyebrow. "Do I even want to know why?"

"I don't think there was an actual reason, to be honest," Bickslow answered before turning to Wendy. "Go on, kid. Go sit on your dragon throne," he chuckled. "Rule over them like the Queen you are."

To that, Gajeel and Laxus (even Cobra, too) decided to join Sting in trying to get her to make their slayer pile complete. There was only so much Wendy could take from her elder brothers, and much to Carla's disappointment, she stepped forward and carefully began to climb her way to the top. One foot on what she assumed was Cobra's arm judging by how he groaned, then Laxus' shoulder, Rogue's leg, and then she was sitting down sideways on Sting's back gracefully and letting her legs dangle over the rest of them.

Bickslow got up from his chair just to bow down in front of the pile, and with his tongue out and a wide grin plastered on his face as Lucy giggled behind him, he graciously said, "My Queen."

* * *

"'Kino, no," Lucy whined, protesting the bride's efforts to get her over to the large group of women in the guild hall.

"Yes," the other Celestial mage insisted, and Lucy rolled her eyes.

"But I just want to sit and eat more marshmallows."

"You can do that after."

Lucy seemed to know that she couldn't argue too much with Yukino. She was the bride, after all, and if she wanted Lucy to actually be in the swarm of women all clambering to catch the bouquet from the ceremony, then she was just going to have to put up with it. It wasn't like she actually had a chance of catching it anyway. There were women in the already massive group getting far too impatient as it was (and Sabertooth seemed to have a lot of tall women, and Lucy was relatively little), because they each wanted to be the lucky one to catch it. Lucy didn't want to be one of those though.

She just wanted to get it over with so she could go back to sitting with Bickslow, leaning on his shoulder, and eating the fluffy goodness that was her supply of mini marshmallows, because they were the only things she could manage to keep down for very long. As soon as Yukino had gone and done her bouquet toss, Lucy could go back to waiting for the night to end, so it was with great reluctance that she finally gave in and made her way to stand somewhere in the crowd.

She wasn't going to really take part in it. There was just no point. So when Yukino shouted, "Are you ready girls?" and everyone around her just squealed and giggled (Mira included, and Lucy could pick out her voice in amongst the crowd even though she was nowhere near the woman), all Lucy did was sigh and roll her eyes while keeping her arms folded across her chest. _Yes, please, just get it over and done with. I want my marshmallows._

Lucy hadn't even been watching it either. She'd really been too busy thinking of her marshmallows and wondering just how many other flavours there could be in other places in the world that she only noticed what was going on around her when the bouquet actually _hit_ her. Reflexively, she scrambled to catch it, and then she just stared at it in her hands.

She didn't want it, nor did she need it. "I… Uh…" She turned to each of the strangers closest to her and tried handing it off, but each only laughed and shook their heads, some only saying how she deserved it and she'd caught it so it was hers. She hadn't caught it though! It had basically just fallen into her hands by chance.

On the other side of the room though, Bickslow was only recovering from choking on his drink. Cobra was chuckling next to him and finding the situation just way too damn perfect. "You know what that means, don't you, Seith?" he questioned.

"Nothing," Bickslow responded. "It means nothing." Well, he sure as hell hoped so, anyway. It wasn't exactly like he had any issues with ever proposing to Lucy or marrying her, because despite being in a constant state of worry over the last few weeks, it had still been all he'd thought about. Through sickness and in health, he really did want to be with her, and considering all that had been going on in the last few weeks, Bickslow knew he could handle the sickness side of that promise.

But Lucy just happening to catch Yukino's bouquet didn't mean anything. It was far too soon to even be thinking about proposing because they'd only been together for six months. Bickslow didn't even know if Lucy wanted to get married one day anyway. He assumed that she would eventually, but Bickslow still had a hard time picturing himself in that kind of life with her. It had always been someone else, and he'd been willing to accept that it wouldn't be him because he would never be the one that was able to make her the happiest or give her the life she wanted or even deserved.

If Lucy thought that he could do all of that though, then it would probably make Bickslow the happiest person in the universe. That just wasn't going to be for a while though. He hoped that day came, but things were perfectly fine the way they were. They didn't need to be rushing into getting married.

Cobra, on the other hand… Well, he seemed to think otherwise, but that was really just because he was enjoying teasing his prankster friend, whether he knew it or not. "Nothing? Really?" the Dragon Slayer sighed. He ignored the slightly curious glare the Seith mage gave him as he draped an arm over his shoulder and shook his head. "You don't think it means the oh so horrible universe if you giving you some bullshit sign that you need to marry her and start making lots of mini yous?"

"Uh… No." Marry her? Yeah, he was down for that. But kids? Not so much. It was still something he wasn't thinking about either. He had no reason to right then, not until he was ready to actually tell her that he couldn't see himself wanting them and risk ruining his very relationship with the woman.

Cobra found himself worrying with what was running through the man's head. He was so oblivious to the situation that he really was tempted to just grab the Seith mage by the shoulders and straight out tell him that he was really needing to sit down with his girlfriend and talk about what they each wanted in life, but he couldn't. He could tease him and hint all he wanted because it was just going to go over the guy's head anyway, but he couldn't actually tell him. Neither could Gajeel, Laxus, or even Natsu. It was as obvious to them as it was to Mira, and even _she_ was keeping her mouth shut.

"Not even _one_ mini you?" Cobra pressed – and carefully at that.

"Zero is the perfect number," Bickslow muttered.

"What about a mini Lucy?"

"Zero is _still_ the perfect number."

Cobra sighed and sat up. So Bickslow was really set on having no kids. He'd spent enough time around the Seith mage that evening to know that he really wasn't opposed to actually being with her for a considerable amount of time, because he'd seen and heard all of what he'd been going over internally for the course of the night, and it had all been about Lucy. It was just the issue surrounded children. Cobra could tell that it wasn't something Lucy knew though, and it was also something that Bickslow was trying to put off for as long as possible, but Cobra didn't quite blame him for that.

It wasn't as if Cobra enjoyed knowing so much about the situation, because he didn't. He shouldn't know, and neither should Laxus or Gajeel or Natsu or even Mira. He honestly felt sorry for the guy, and for Lucy too. Their lives and entire world would be turning upside down, and that was never something anyone enjoyed. But for those two, it was going to be one hell of a change, and as much as Cobra was trying to get his own head around the fact that Bickslow had ended up with Lucy of all people somehow, he almost hoped that things between them didn't completely end up falling apart.

A kid wasn't supposed to a reason for a relationship to fall apart, but Cobra worried that it would be with those two, just because of how Bickslow felt about the entire issue. But whether he wanted one or not, he was having one. He just didn't know it yet, and neither did Lucy.

But no one could tell them to make things just a little bit easier for both of them, and it was slightly frustrating.

* * *

It was nearing the end of the night where most of the guests of the wedding were drunk off their face that Bickslow realised that there was actually a limit to how much creepiness and weirdness he could handle in one day. He'd gotten over the weird dragon pile and then Natsu acting weird every time he went near himself or Lucy. He'd forgotten about the slayer trio being all suspicious and sneaky, too. He'd even stopped thinking about why Mira was watching Lucy like a hawk and how Cobra had seemed to stop with the teasing after he'd walked away to go irritate Jellal and Erza.

However, even though he'd put aside the odd little things that had been happening over the night and just put them down to everyone drinking, there was one thing that Bickslow could not get over – whether people were drunk or not. That was people staring at _his_ girlfriend. And considering Bickslow was usually found with that expression on his face when it came to admiring his gorgeous blonde, the fact that he wasn't even the one staring at her right then was a little disturbing.

Determined to get them to all stop being perverts, Bickslow made his way over to where his male friends seemed to be lined up against a wall, each staring at Lucy as she talked to Cana and Juvia, and got ready to hit each of them over the back of their heads. He only did it to Gajeel though, since he was closest. "Just why the fuck are you all staring at my girlfriend?" he demanded, eyes roving down the group of males that just seemed to ignore his question completely.

"I'm not imagining it though, right?" Sting asked.

Laxus nodded. "You're not."

"What are you not imagining?" Bickslow queried. _What the hell are they talking about?!_ But again, it only went ignored. Either they didn't know he was there, or they just didn't want to include him, which was likely.

"Nope. They're definitely bigger," Gray mused, and Natsu nodded in agreement quickly.

Bickslow looked between the two of them with an eyebrow raised. _Bigger?_ What the hell were they— _Oh_. Turning his attention to Lucy who was still happily talking to the other women, Bickslow found himself crossing his arms and mimicking the posture of the other males in the line, and his head tilted to the side slightly. "Huh."

The fact that they all seemed to be actually perving on his girlfriend was not at the forefront of his mind right then. Instead, he was just joining them in the act and staring directly at his girlfriend's chest.

Bigger.

Bickslow knew exactly what they were all discussing quietly now. They were talking about the size of her breasts, and ordinarily, Bickslow really would have been wanting to hit them all over the back of the head with any of Lucy's heavier books enough to get those kind of thoughts permanently out of their heads, but right then, he didn't want to, just because they had a strangely valid point. Bickslow wasn't even beginning to question just how Sting seemed to notice that. He was really just too busy trying to figure out if _he_ wasn't imagining it himself.

From that angle, they certainly looked it, though it wasn't exactly like her dress helped. The bodice was practically skin tight and she was close to looking like she was going to spill out of the top of the dress any second, and he could remember Lucy complaining about it when she'd been getting ready earlier.

Surely he would have noticed something as miraculous as her chest getting bigger happening though. He'd practically memorised how she looked – and felt – by that point. If they had somehow grown, Bickslow would have noticed.

"It's just the dress," Bickslow said absent-mindedly. It had to be the dress. A feat like that didn't happen. She was a grown woman, after all. The dress, in all of its frilly skirt and powder blue glory, was just amplifying what she already had.

But… As much as Bickslow wanted to believe that's all he was, he was far too curious for his own good. He didn't manage to pay attention or hear what Gajeel said after that, because he was too busy weaving his way towards Lucy.

An arm came around her waist and Lucy instantly knew it was Bickslow, so she only smiled up at him for a second before she found herself being pulled away from Cana and Juvia with an apology from Bickslow. "Bickslow, where are you taking me?" Lucy giggled, but Bickslow didn't even do so much as look at her when he instead pulled her through Sabertooth's guild by the hand.

He didn't know his way around their guild, so Bickslow had no idea if he was heading in a direction that would lead them to have some sort of privacy for a few moments. Thankfully, he was though, and pushing open one of the few closed doors in a long hall, he found what appeared to be some sort of office. He ushered Lucy in and then locked the door behind him – there was no way in hell he was going to risk someone maybe following and seeing what he was doing.

Lucy was beginning to get suspicious though. He was being strangely quiet and his brow was creased in his apparent concentration. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Just want to test something," Bickslow mumbled. Before Lucy could even ask what that something was, he was accepting the fate of pissing off his girlfriend in a matter of seconds and making her quite possibly hate him for the next few hours (or days), and was hooking his fingers into the front of her strapless powder blue dress and yanking it down.

She yelped and pushed his hands away, and folded her arms across her chest to at least try and cover herself without pulling her dress back on. It didn't help that she was pretty sure Bickslow had just broken the zip at the back, too, so she was going to have to get Virgo to fix that after. "What the hell was that for?!" she shrieked, but Bickslow was too busy staring at her partially covered breasts to really answer her.

When she'd been sick for the last few weeks, sex was really the last thing on her mind, so Bickslow hadn't really gone anywhere near her in that department. She didn't want to, and it wasn't like he was going to push her to. But because of that, he hadn't actually seen her without a shirt on since the week they got back from Akane Beach. That had only really been a month earlier.

But he'd still seen her without a shirt on enough to know what she looked like. Or at least, that's what he thought. He had a good memory. The problem now though, was that he was doubting his memory. Surely that wasn't the case though.

He still needed to check though, and considering checking meant getting to feel his girlfriend up like the perv he really was deep down… He wasn't really complaining.

"Just… Testing something," he said quietly again, and gently, he pulled her hands away just to replace them with his own.

"This is literally the weirdest situation I have ever been in in my entire life." It felt almost clinical, the way he touched her, gently squeezing each one, and it really was creeping her out. And then more some when she found herself actually _enjoying_ it.

"Tell me about it." Did he expect to be actually feeling up his girlfriend in an office somewhere at a wedding? No. But he also didn't expect to be wondering just why the hell she felt so different in his hands.

But… He really wasn't going to question it that much. He didn't really care, to be perfectly honest. All the blood in his head that would enable him to question how she seemed to be going through a second puberty or something strange like that, only seemed to be rushing somewhere else.

The good thing for Bickslow though, was that getting felt up in an office in Sabertooth's building was just having her arousal flicker to life in her abdomen (and she could tell that it really was not just mistaken for her need to go find the nearest bathroom and be forced to brush her teeth for what was probably the sixth time that day). Pulling Bickslow's head up so he was looking at her face rather than where his hands were, Lucy's hands reached out to thread through the hair he'd had messily slicked back for the course of the night, and quickly pulled him down so his lips were on hers.

He seemed to get the message from that, and he certainly wasn't going to complain. He dared not break the kiss as he slid his hands down over the seemingly millions of ruffles in the short dress and to her thighs, just to pick her up and have her wrap her slender legs around his hips as he carried her over to sit on the desk in the room.

* * *

The train ride home had been as long and tiring as the ride there. When they got home late that night, both exhausted, they each only wanted one thing: to collapse onto their bed and do nothing until they could be bothered to actually get changed and go to bed.

As soon as their door was closed, Lucy kicked her heels off, threw the bolero she'd worn on her way home in the chilly night to one of the dining chairs, and sluggishly trudged down the hall and to the bedroom. She didn't even bother turning on any lights until she was in there, and it was only one of the lamps on her side of the bed. By the time Bickslow had joined her, his tie undone, shirt untucked and sleeves rolled up, Lucy was already comfortably sprawled out across the bed and still in the frilly cocktail dress that Virgo had managed to fix.

He collapsed down onto the mattress next to her with a happy sigh, and when Lucy shifted to rest her head on his shoulder, he wrapped an arm around her back and let his other rest across his stomach. It was so comfortable, and Lucy was so warm – and soft, always so soft – and Bickslow was just exhausted. He probably could have fallen asleep in a matter of minutes in the silent room if it hadn't been for Lucy suddenly dropping the bouquet she'd caught earlier on his face.

Bickslow chuckled as he moved it to sit on a book on his nightstand. "What was that for?"

"You looked like you were falling asleep," Lucy giggled.

"That's because I _was_ falling asleep. I was comfortable until you decided to drop some flowers on my face."

"But they go so well with your hair!"

He turned until he was on his side and Lucy was against his chest again. Grinning, he quickly kissed her mouth and said, "I'm not putting flowers in my hair."

"Pity," she giggled again. Lucy couldn't help but imagine Bickslow with tiny little flowers stuck in his hair, and then with a flower crown. Her imagination couldn't do it justice though, she realised. She was going to need to see the real thing one day. Somehow, she would get Bickslow to have flowers in his hair.

But when the room fell into silence again with Bickslow instead burying his face in the crook of her neck, Lucy's thoughts trailed off once again when her eyes found the bouquet on the nightstand behind him again. She knew what it was supposed to mean – that she would be the next to get married – but Lucy didn't believe in that. It was just a silly tradition. Even if she was sure that it was what she wanted, she sure as hell wasn't ready for it yet. One day, definitely; any time soon though? Definitely not.

But then there was the issue of whether or not Bickslow would even want to do something like actually get married somewhere down the track. Lucy knew she wanted to be with Bickslow, but if Bickslow didn't want to do _that_ , then that would be okay, too. Getting married was important to Lucy, but Bickslow was _more_ important.

Still though, Lucy couldn't help but hope that it was what Bickslow would want for them one day. And it was that same hope that had her curiosity rising, and Lucy had never really been very good and keeping that in check. "Hey, Bicks…?" She didn't tear her eyes away from the ceiling and the way the light cast shadows across it as she asked, "Do you ever think about the future?"

"Huh?"

"You know, like… Like us," she explained. "Like whether or not you think we'll last."

Bickslow didn't dare sit up to look at her. He only turned his head enough so that he didn't have it pressed against her neck or the pillow, but it was enough so that she wasn't able to see _him_. He wasn't even sure where the sudden conversation topic had come from, but that was strangely okay. He knew he didn't need to worry about it, because his answer was one that he was actually comfortable giving her. If she was asking, then it meant she was or she already had thought about that same idea, and that was a good thing. "Well, yeah," Bickslow answered. "I've thought about a lot of things though."

Lucy smiled and she knew she was blushing. "Like what?"

"Like… How I really hope we last, because I don't want to remember what it's like without you here." And that was really what it all came down to for Bickslow. He had spent far too long in a state of acceptance that there just wasn't anyone he would ever be able to trust enough to take all of his walls down, that he just didn't want to go back to feeling so incredibly closed off from everyone around him. He trusted Lucy and he loved her more than she knew. He just didn't want to be without her and remember how everything had felt when he hadn't had her. "Besides," He propped himself up on one elbow while his other arm remained draped over her. "I'm pretty sure we said we were going to retire from the mage life after your birthday and travel the world and live happily ever after. We can't do that _without_ you, Lucy."

"So we should probably try and enjoy these last few days of being in Fairy Tail since my birthday is next week."

"Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me."

Lucy laughed as she shoved his shoulder. "You did _not_ forget when my birthday is."

He leant down to quickly kiss her lips again before he said, "Of course I didn't. Already got your presents, too."

"Oooh! Will I like them?"

He chuckled nervously while returning to his former position of using his girlfriend as a human-shaped pillow. "Uh, I sure hope so," he muttered.

Lucy knew she'd love them though, whatever they were. He knew her and he knew what she liked and loved, which made him the perfect present buyer in her eyes.

But birthdays and joking about retiring and running away together aside, Lucy was still curious. It was great that Bickslow did want to be with her, and she was still reeling from it, but she needed to know more. She needed to know something else, but she was so worried about it truly being the wrong time to bring it up.

Surely it would be fine to ask though. She'd just be asking to see where Bickslow was at. It'd just be a harmless question, or at the very least she hoped it would be. "But… Getting back to the topic just before," she said slowly.

"Which was about _us_ …"

She nodded. Then, setting her bottom lip free from where it had been between her teeth, she quietly asked, "Have you ever thought about anything like… Getting married one day?"

It was then that Bickslow found himself incredibly glad that she couldn't see him. That wasn't really something he was ready to answer though. Admitting that he really did hope they stayed together was one thing, but admitting that he really did want to marry her one day? That, Bickslow couldn't do just yet. Shifting uncomfortably on the bed, he only responded with his own question: "Have _you_ thought about it?"

"W-Well, yeah, I guess…"

 _So she's thought about getting married. Oh…_ Bickslow was sure that was a good sign, though. "And is that something you want…?"

"It is," Lucy admitted. "One day, I mean. B-But if, you know, we don't work out for some reason, or if we do and it's not something you ever want, then that's okay too… I just… I just wanted to ask, that's all."

She meant him. She meant marrying _him_ one day, and Bickslow would be lying if he said that he wasn't actually relieved to hear her say all of that. Already, she seemed to know what she wanted, and it was so perfect for Bickslow to know that he wasn't the only one to have thought about anything like that.

But Bickslow wasn't thinking about whether or not Lucy could ever see herself with him in the future. Instead, he was thinking about doing something that was clearly incredibly stupid. His head was telling him that it was too soon to be actually considering proposing, and that they at least needed to have a slightly more serious conversation about what else they wanted in their lives, but his heart strongly disagreed. He wasn't even worrying or thinking of the consequences of anything because they all seemed irrelevant right then. He wasn't worried about things not working out between them should something huge come up, because he believed they would find a way to get past or through it together. They would always work things out, because that was what Bickslow needed, and he needed _Lucy_ like he needed oxygen and ethernanos.

His heart seemed to win the internal argument though, unsurprisingly, and without a word, Bickslow pulled himself away and rolled back towards the edge of the bed. Lucy watched him curiously as he rooted around in one of the drawers for something, and when he handed her a small silver box, she raised an eyebrow at him. "What's this?" she inquired.

"Just uh… Open it," Bickslow mumbled.

"Okay…" So she did so slowly, and as Bickslow watched her from where he sat cross-legged on the bed, he chewed on the inside of his cheek while internally berating himself for not thinking about what he'd just put into motion.

With the lid finally off, Lucy stared wide-eyed at the sparkling diamond ring in her hands – a rectangular stone sitting on a halo of white diamonds on a thin platinum pave band. "Is… Is this…?" She only tore her eyes from the ring just to see Bickslow nod.

"My mother's?" he finished for her. "Yeah. It's the one Cas gave me last year, and… The same one that I have been pretending doesn't exist for the last six months."

Lucy had only been curious about the ring since Caspian had brought it up and Bickslow had reluctantly explained just why he had one in the first place. She had wanted to see it, and she'd even gone as far as asking about it again as soon as they'd returned home, but Bickslow had been set on her not seeing it. Now though…

Now, he was willingly showing it to her, and Lucy didn't quite know how to feel. She just didn't understand it, and the last thing she wanted to do was get her hopes up. He couldn't be proposing, as much as she wished that he actually was. He hadn't even been able to give her an answer, so just why had he handed her an engagement ring? "Why do I have this?" she whispered. It was all Lucy had been able to manage, because part of her feared that it would just be something that made her miserable.

"Well, because I… I want you to have it."

Lucy stared at Bickslow, and as much as she wanted to ask him just what the hell he had just said, she couldn't get her voice to work. Not a single sound came out when she opened it, and in the uncomfortably silent room, all Lucy could hear was her heart pounding in her ears.

It was at times like those though that Bickslow really appreciated his inability to shut his mouth when he was nervous. Right then, he was incredibly nervous, and oh so horribly confused. Not so much about what he was _kind of_ asking her, but about whether or not it was a good idea to _right then._ He wished he could just put the ring back in the drawer and pretend that it didn't exist for the next eternity, but he knew he couldn't now. Lucy had it, like he did want her to, but after what he'd just said, he really did need to keep talking.

"What I mean is that I… That I love you," he began quickly. He didn't lift his eyes from where they were focused on his hands on his lap, nervously wringing them together. "I love you a lot, and I really do want to be with you for… For as long as you'll love me, I suppose. But I've been thinking a lot about what I want lately, and I know that I want you and I want to actually marry you one—"

She sat up finally and just about choked on her own air. "Bickslow…"

"—day," he continued. He was already too far gone to stop. "And I mean, even if you did want to actually marry me, not that I'm sure why you'd want to because I'm _me_ and I'm just a giant mess like constantly—"

 _You're not a mess._ "Bicks—"

"But if you really did want to, it's not like it would have to be any time soon, 'cause, y'know, it's only been six months and you'd really just be insane to actually consider it right now anyway—"

"Bickslow, _shut up_."

He realised then that he was looking right at her, but he figured it probably had something to do with her hands being on his cheeks and was forcing him to look at her. Licking his suddenly dry lips, he nodded slightly. "Shutting up," he mumbled.

She smiled warmly at the Seith mage before her. Taking her own breath and nodding, she softly said, "Breathe, okay? And _slow down_."

Bickslow nodded again. Breathing was a good idea. So was slowing down. That was why he loved her – she was smart and he wasn't.

Lucy waited until Bickslow had _somewhat_ calmed down before she dropped her hands and sat back down on her knees in front of him. So she was really getting her hopes up then, and even Lucy was having to take the moment to get herself to calm down a little. She was breathing far too quickly and if Bickslow wasn't going to have a heart attack from having a heart beating too fast, then _she_ was. "Now," she began again after they'd both taken their moments to compose themselves. By then, Lucy was fighting the urge to not giggle like a schoolgirl at the red on his cheeks. "Are you asking me what I think you are?"

"I… Well, uh… Yes? No? Maybe?"

"What does that mean?" she giggled.

"…I don't know," Bickslow mumbled, turning his head away again. It was embarrassing because he was just so confused and nervous and he didn't really know what to do.

She picked up the ring box again and admired it once again. "Well, do you want to be asking me to marry you?"

Bickslow nodded a little reluctantly as he watched her begin to slip the ring onto her finger.

And then she was pulling it back off quickly and handing just the ring back to him. "Then ask me properly," she whispered.

Oh, he so wanted to do just that, but he was scared and unsure of what would happen if he did ask. "Will you say yes?" he whispered, but Lucy only shrugged and gave him that heartfelt smile he loved so much.

"Ask me and find out."

That didn't help Bickslow though. He didn't want to ask her just so she could say no. That would really just make him want to curl in on himself and sleep for the next eternity and hide in his embarrassment and shame. "You know, if you… If you don't want to, you can just say so. It's not like I'm going to try and kill myself over it or anything," he muttered, just to get a stern look from the blonde and an actual flick to his forehead. He deserved that though.

"Don't say things like that," Lucy frowned.

Bickslow nodded again. "Sorry." Just because she knew about his past, didn't mean he could joke about it. "But… But I mean it. It's insane and I'm probably clinically insane for even thinking about this, so you really can say no."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Bickslow, just ask me already," she sighed. She was really beginning to get a little impatient, and she honestly had no idea why Bickslow seemed to think she was say no. She was just as insane as he was sometimes, but he had apparently forgotten that.

"What about the ring?" he asked. "I mean, even if you do say yes, you don't have to keep this ring. I just… Well, I just had it, and you know, the conversation…"

"Bickslow."

"Or if you say no now, then I could get a different one for when it hasn't been six months. Like, in a year or something maybe…"

" _Bickslow_ ," Lucy said firmly again, but Bickslow could see the amusement in her eyes and he could hear that lilt in her voice. "Just ask me to marry you already." She really didn't know how much more obvious she could make it that she was going to say yes. She was practically begging him to ask her at that point, and surely he had to have realised that it meant she wasn't going to say no.

 _Right. Ask her. Yes. I can do that. I think._ He nodded, and looked back down to the ring sitting in his palm. "Do I have to do the whole getting down on one knee thing?"

She smiled almost wickedly, and Bickslow found himself regretting his decision to ask her. "Hmm, yes," she answered. He groaned and rolled his eyes, and with the way he rolled himself off of the bed, you'd have thought Lucy was forcing him to do something he really didn't want to do.

But he wanted to ask her. He really did. He was still incredibly nervous though, and Lucy could see that. All of that would be gone in just a moment though, and as soon as he finally got the question out, she would be able to give him the answer that he actually wanted. So she sat on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor and waited patiently for Bickslow to actually ask her.

He felt just a little silly actually being down on one knee, but he reasoned he was just going to have to get over that. Just like he was going to have to get over his fear of asking her to marry him. If she said no, he would still be asking her again one day, just because marrying her was what he wanted to do, and he sure as hell hoped that it would still be what Lucy wanted to do, too. But if she said yes…

 _Don't get your hopes up._

Holding the ring between his index finger and his thumb of one hand, Bickslow sighed and looked up to her. She was smiling, which was a good sign, and that was what he needed. He needed a good sign to just get over himself and ask her. And that was exactly what he did. "Lucy."

"That would be my name," she said softly.

"I…" _What am I supposed to be saying right now?_ "Have no idea what else I'm supposed to be saying. Pretty sure I'm supposed to be going on about how I love you and all that but I hope you already know all of that, so…" He paused for just one short moment when he looked back down to the ring he held, and then grimacing while preparing himself for the worst, he quickly asked, "Willyoumarryme?"

Lucy rolled her eyes and plucked the ring from between his fingers. " _Duh_." She wasn't going to make him ask her again or get him to say it a little slower. She'd inflicted enough pain on him that evening. All she'd wanted was for him to actually ask her, and he had – eventually. She was happy now.

Bickslow, on the other hand…

He was only stuck staring at the spot where the ring had been just a few seconds before. He'd really been expecting her to say no, because proposing after six months really was insane and the worst idea in the world, but she hadn't.

She hadn't said no. She'd said _yes_ … Well, sort of. But it meant the same as a yes, and Bickslow seemed to be in a state of shock. Surely he couldn't have heard her correctly, or managed to watch her put the ring on the finger it belonged on from the corner of his vision.

When he finally managed to emerge from his daze though, and his brain had come back from its short holiday to god knows where, he looked up at Lucy, and then back down to his empty hand, and then back up to Lucy. "Wait… What?"

Lucy giggled at the dazed and confused expression that remained on his face. "Are you okay there, Bicks?"

"Uh… Yeah. I think," he mumbled. That was a lie though. He was more than okay, as he was realising. He'd just proposed, and she'd said yes. He was on cloud nine right then, and he couldn't keep the grin off his face as he slowly stood up and looked down to her in almost awe. "You said yes."

She nodded and matched his grin with her own. "I did."

"You said…" He fell down onto the bed beside her and pulled her back with him. "Holy fuck, wow," he breathed.

Lucy happily let herself be pulled into his arms again and giggled as Bickslow began to pepper her entire face with kisses and whispered utterances of her favourite three words. The last thing Lucy had expected to be happening that day was getting engaged, but that didn't mean she didn't love that it had happened. Of course, she had no intentions of actually getting married for a while. Getting engaged was one thing, just because they both knew that in the long run they really did want to be with each other, but actually getting married was something else entirely.

"You are actually insane," Bickslow chuckled, and when he leant back just to look at her, it felt like he was actually falling in love with her all over again. And that was strangely odd, because he didn't know when he'd fallen in love with her in the first place.

That didn't matter though. All that mattered was that the wonderfully insane and beautiful woman in front of him was his. He had Lucy all to himself, now and forever, and that made him so incredibly happy.

"I'm insane?" Lucy scoffed. "You're insane too, you know."

"I know I am, but you just agreed to marry me. That makes you absolutely insane."

She rolled her eyes at his argument. So, she might be just a little insane for saying yes, but she didn't care. Smiling sweetly as she let her forehead rest against his, Lucy quietly replied with, "And you're the one who asked me, so you're just as insane as I am, Bickslow."

"Then we can be insane together," he whispered, and then he softly pressed his lips to hers in the most tender of kisses. Being insane was always more fun when you had someone else who matched the insanity with their own, and Bickslow was truly looking forward to what would come.

But then his eyes shot open with the realisation that there was someone that was more insane than both of them combined at times, and it sent a shiver straight down Bickslow's spine when he thought of what would happen once their friends found out they were getting married – well, eventually. "Mira's gonna freak."

* * *

 **Yeah, you know what part I mean. That super weird part that we're not going to mention.**

 **On another note, I'm sorry... I can't help it sometimes. The BixLu babies are too much and they're too adorable. I hadn't planned on this story taking that kind of turn, but when I was thinking of what I was going to do for the last prompts when I was writing the first one, this is just where my brain took me...**  
 **Besides, I thought it was pretty obvious where things were heading from the chapter title alone and then from the last part of Chapter 13 (the previous one).**

 **Anyway. There's only three more chapters left of this including the epilogue! I'm kind of proud of myself, but also kind of sad since I've really enjoyed writing this story.**

 **I hope you enjoyed it though, considering all thing. Reviews are always appreciated.**

 **Until next time.**

 **\- April**

 ** _(Laughing at myself because I went to type VI for the prompt number in lower case. Silly brain. This isn't a chord.)_**


	17. (VII) Alone

_It makes me sad that this is nearly over. But, I do quickly want to say thank you to everyone that's followed and favourited (and especially reviewed) so far! I didn't even expect half of what it has right now, seriously._

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 15: SPACE**_  
 _ **ALONE**_

* * *

Lucy finally decided to head to the doctor just two weeks after they were engaged. On the engagement front, no one really seemed to mind that they'd only been together for six months – just as long as they were happy, and they were. They really were.

But when it came to Lucy still being incredibly ill, no one was happy, especially not Bickslow and Lucy. If anything, Lucy only seemed to get worse. The last two weeks had only had Lucy stuck in the apartment, barely able to do anything because she'd just had no energy whatsoever. Add to the mix that everything she ate (or even drank) just did not get along with her stomach at all, and that every time she got up from bed she just got incredibly dizzy incredibly quickly, then it was borderline impossible to go anywhere.

As soon as she'd told Bickslow that she'd try and see a doctor, he'd practically jumped for joy. He'd been so, _so_ close to dragging Lucy to the emergency department more than once over the last two weeks alone, but Lucy deciding it was time to finally go see a doctor about her seemingly rapidly deteriorating health was probably one of the best things Bickslow had ever heard.

It was just that a cause for her horrible health had occurred to Lucy over the last week, yet she hadn't told Bickslow, just because she hadn't wanted to worry him or freak him out. After the last time she'd mentioned that she might be pregnant, she didn't want a repeat of that situation. She wanted to find out for sure whether she was or not, and for the last week, Lucy had only had a sinking feeling that she really might be that time, and that was what her doctor thought, too. Still, she'd have to wait for the blood test results to come back to find out whether a baby was actually the cause of everything she'd been experiencing over the last month and a half, or if it was actually something else.

Lucy honestly didn't know what to do, though. Everything pointed to her being pregnant, that they'd made a new life without meaning to or even realising, and it terrified her.

She only stood staring at her feet, almost completely lost in her thoughts as she waiting for her prescription to be ready. Her doctor was almost entirely convinced that she was pregnant and doubted that it really was anything else, and had already gone ahead and prescribed something just to help deal with the nausea, because if she really did have a new life growing inside of her, then Lucy was just one of the unlucky ones who would be stuck going through seven kinds of hell for the first half of the entire pregnancy.

Still, she just had to wait a few more days for all of her bloodwork to get back, and then she could talk to Bickslow. Though, Lucy suspected that she'd probably be telling her fiancé that he was going to be a father, and that thought alone terrified her because she really didn't know how he would react.

But all of that aside, Lucy didn't know how she was going to survive the next few days, not knowing if she really was having a baby or not. And then Bickslow… She didn't know how she'd be able to keep him from knowing that something was wrong and that she was worrying, because she was honestly scared, and she was scared of everything that was going on.

Lucy knew that she could find out whether she really was pregnant or not and it would probably make the next few days slightly more bearable, even though she was almost convinced herself that she was. She could take a home test – the same ones that she was presently staring at as she waited for her prescription to be filled. They were accurate enough, and then she'd be able to tell Bickslow and probably risk destroying her relationship yet again. That was always fun to do.

She really needed to know though. She couldn't spend the next few days worrying herself. She just didn't have time to do that, between hating her entire existence and spending her entire day in bed. So when Lucy heard her name be called by the pharmacist, she walked forward to the counter after pulling one of the boxes with the tests from the shelf, and made to pay for everything.

* * *

She glanced to Bickslow lying on the lounge yet again, then back to the book she had in her lap. She'd only been back for a few hours, but the pills her doctor had had her start taking were already working so she wasn't stuck curled up in a ball in bed (or on the bathroom floor, either). The pregnancy test, however… That was still sitting in her purse, and for now, she was putting off taking it and finding out, just because she was scared.

But even if she was scared and was putting it off for just a little while longer, something she realised she had also done the first time she'd thought she might be pregnant, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. And, more importantly, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about where Bickslow stood on the whole kids front. It wasn't something they'd ever talked about, but Lucy hadn't thought it was something they'd need to be talking about any time soon, so she just hadn't thought about it at all. Right then, though, that's what she felt they needed to talk about.

She glanced to the napping Seith mage once again – he hadn't had much sleep over the last couple of weeks because he'd been stressed about her, and he'd only gotten back from an overnight job early that morning – and closed her book. "Bickslow?" she said softly. She didn't exactly want to be waking him up, even though she knew he wasn't really asleep, but she needed to. Lucy was sure she'd crack otherwise.

He cracked an eye open and looked to her. "Mm-hmm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

He sat up slightly just to fold both of his arms under his head, and nodded slightly. "Mm-hmm," he hummed again.

"Do you um… Do you ever want to have children?" Lucy asked hesitantly. She couldn't stop wringing her hands together in her lap as she continued, "I mean, since we'll be getting married eventually and all, I just… You know, I thought it would be a good time to ask, and I'm just curious to know whether it was something you ever wanted."

"…So you're asking if I ever want to have kids?"

Lucy nodded, and all Bickslow did was let out a frustrated sigh and turn his head to bury his face in the pillow he was leaning on. He didn't want to be having that conversation. Not right then, anyway. Bickslow had known it was something that would happen eventually, and he'd known that it was something he wouldn't have been able to avoid forever, but he'd just wanted to be selfish for a little while longer. He'd just wanted to enjoy what he had – _they_ had – for a little while longer before he lost all of it, because that's what Bickslow was worried about the most.

But he couldn't avoid it any longer, and he didn't know what else he could do other than tell her the truth. Now wasn't the time to lie. Not about something as important and as life-changing as having kids. So finally, he only turned his head so he was facing her though kept his eyes down and towards the coffee table, just because he could even bring himself to look her in the eyes, and said, "No."

"N-No?" Lucy repeated. "Not at all?"

"Not really, no."

So that was that. Bickslow didn't want to have children. Ever. And it only proved to make Lucy feel even worse about the situation she had presently found herself in, because she was realising that no matter the outcome, she wasn't going to have Bickslow when she needed him the most.

Lucy had no idea what she was supposed to do now if it turned out she really was pregnant. She certainly couldn't tell him that she might be, and then if she was, she wouldn't even be able to tell him that, because she was so scared of what would happen. Would he hate her? Would he leave her? Would he _blame_ her? Because already, she blamed herself, even when she didn't know anything for sure.

But right then, finding out whether she had a new life already growing inside of her wasn't what she was focusing on. Instead, Lucy could only focus on getting what she _needed_ , and right then, that was air. She could feel her hands trembling where she held them clasped in together in her lap, and her chest was beginning to feel tight and her breathing was becoming more difficult. She needed to stop panicking before things got out of hand for herself; she needed air and she needed to be able to breathe.

Most importantly, though, she needed some space. She needed to get away to think about everything, and she wasn't going to be able to do that with Bickslow around her. He couldn't know that anything was wrong. "O-Okay then," Lucy whispered.

As soon as she got up and he saw her unfocused eyes begin to fill with tears before she turned her back on him, he quickly sat up. _No… No, she can't be leaving._ She didn't understand – she didn't understand _why_ he didn't want to have children. It wasn't just a simple preference, like he had just decided one day he didn't want to have that kind of responsibility or have his life change so drastically. That wasn't the case, but Bickslow had a feeling that that was what Lucy thought, and he needed her to understand that there was more to it than that. "Lucy, wait, please. You… You don't… Please, just stay. Let me explain," he pleaded.

Lucy shook her head. "Can we please just talk about it later?" She didn't know what there was to talk about, but whatever it was, she didn't want to know right then. "Just… Just not right now, Bickslow."

She didn't stay to hear anything else before she gently closed the door behind herself and left. She just couldn't hear it. And even then, what was it Bickslow would say? That he just didn't like kids and that was why he didn't want them? Lucy knew that that was just the case with some people. Not everyone liked children, and not everyone was willing to change their life on that kind of scale. She could accept that, too, and maybe if Bickslow had told her that children weren't something he would ever want in their future, then she would have dealt with the news a little better. Maybe if there wasn't a very good possibility that they already had a child on the way, she'd have found a way to be okay with it, just because she needed Bickslow more than she did a baby.

But now, she just didn't know what to do, because everything seemed to be falling apart in front of her very eyes. Maybe that was just what she got for having the last six months feel like they were absolutely perfect; maybe it was the universe's way of showing her that they shouldn't have rushed into everything like moving in together or getting engaged.

That was what she told Levy when she went over to the dorms, just because she needed her best friend to talk and cry to. She couldn't tell Bickslow, but she'd needed to tell someone else what was going on. She'd needed Levy to tell her that everything would end up being okay, because she hadn't been able to go to Bickslow for that. But even then, not even Levy had been able to tell her that everything would work out, because she just hadn't known if it would, and Lucy hadn't been able to blame her for mostly just sitting and listening rather than talking.

But all of Lucy's talking and crying and just seemingly endless worrying only led to her staring at the almost glaringly bright pink positive sign that was actually _glowing_ on the test stick, and then sliding down to Levy's bathroom floor in a heap. She just felt so _stupid._ All of it had been right there in front of her for so long and she hadn't even suspected that a baby was the cause of all of it, when really, that should have been the _first_ thing she should have suspected.

She should have at least begun to wonder if her getting pregnant had even been possible when her period hadn't come when it should have, and she shouldn't have automatically assumed that it was just from messing up so horribly with her birth control. And even then, if she'd just been smart, maybe she wouldn't be in that situation; if she hadn't been stupid and let herself believe that luck would be on her side (again), maybe things would have turned out differently.

And then, just to make everything feel even worse, though Lucy wasn't sure how it could be at that point, she had no idea how long she'd been pregnant to begin with. She knew it wasn't exactly a recent occurrence, because that would have to mean she was having sex, which she wasn't, because she'd honestly just felt too horrible and it had been the furthest thing from her mind. She could guess, though. Go through everything that had happened and changed over the last few weeks and try and figure out when it had even happened, put all of the puzzle pieces that were now in front of her together, but she didn't exactly _want_ to know how far along she was, either, even though she had a pretty good estimate and that was even without thinking about it too much. She felt as if she'd get too attached and her mind would be made too quickly if she knew too much. It wasn't like she wanted a baby. She didn't want to be pregnant, and she sure as hell was not ready to be, either, and neither was Bickslow.

But no matter how much she was panicking about how she had accidentally fallen pregnant and how she had no idea what she was going to do with that new life inside of her, Lucy was still worrying about Bickslow the most. If _she_ wasn't ready for a baby, then Bickslow sure as hell wasn't, either. He didn't even _want_ to have kids, for heaven's sake. And that confused Lucy, if she had to be perfectly honest, because she'd thought that he would. Obviously not right then, or even any time soon, but one day, even though the universe apparently seemed to have other plans. It was just that Lucy had assumed having children together would be something he'd want to do.

She'd seen him with Asuka over the years they'd known each other. The Raijinshuu had quite often been roped into looking after the youngest Connell so Bisca and Alzack could occasionally go on jobs without their daughter, but they'd never really seemed to complain about being tasked with watching her for a day. Bickslow hadn't, at least, and from what Lucy had been able to tell, he'd been the only one to actually do it at all. She'd seen them play and heard them laugh, and she'd even heard Asuka rave about the babies to her parents when they returned. They were, as she had learned over the months, pretty damn awesome though.

And even when they walked through town or stopped by the park for a little while just for something to do, Lucy had seen Bickslow smile and even laugh when there'd been kids playing or just having fun. She'd seen him with Wendy, too, and even though it had never really surprised her to find out that he could be just as protective of her as everyone else was in the guild, despite her no longer being as young as she once was and being wiser than half of the people in the guild, anyway, she'd liked seeing them together.

Lucy had just thought he liked kids, though, and she'd thought that would mean he'd want some of his own one day, but apparently that wasn't the case. But even if Bickslow really did like kids, it didn't necessarily mean he wanted his own. Maybe he just didn't want his life to change in that kind of way.

But whatever the case, Lucy was realising that it didn't matter. Whether Bickslow did like kids or not was irrelevant, because what was important was that he didn't want his own, and Lucy just didn't know what she was supposed to do with that.

"Princess?"

She lifted her head and her hands to wipe her tear-filled eyes, just to see the pink-haired maid spirit bowing down in front of her in the small bathroom, a set of folded clothes in her hands. "Vi-Virgo?" she whispered. "W-What are you doing h-here?" For the life of her, Lucy couldn't figure out why Virgo was standing in front of her right then. She didn't even have her keys with her – she'd left them with her belt at home – and she knew that Virgo could open her own gate, too, but Lucy couldn't help but wonder why she'd chosen to do so right then.

"You are requested in the spirit world," the spirit answered.

 _The Spirit World?_ She'd only been a handful of times, and as much as she adored all of her spirits, it wasn't exactly somewhere she wanted to be visiting right about then. Couldn't they see she was in the middle crisis right then? She had better things to do than go to the spirit world to most likely just socialise with the King or something. _Unless that's why they're requesting me visit, since they'd know what's happening…_

Lucy shook her head. No, it didn't matter why they wanted her there. She didn't want to go. She had to… To go and find Bickslow, because now that she knew, Bickslow had to know, too. She had to tell him, because he deserved to know, even if it was something he didn't want to hear at all.

If anything, she just needed Bickslow to know so he could tell her what to do and what it meant for _them_. She needed her doctor in shining armour to tell her what he wanted her to do, because she wouldn't be able to do anything – especially something like have a baby – without knowing that he was still going to be there to keep her from falling apart and breaking into a million pieces again.

"N-No, I… I can't go," Lucy whispered again. "I have to fi—"

"It is Aquarius who requests you, Princess," Virgo interrupted.

"Aquarius?"

Virgo nodded. "She wishes to speak to you." The spirit held out the clothes in her hands to the blonde – a dark purple and white dress with grey sashes and ribbons, just something that would allow Lucy to cross from one realm to another – then said, "Now please, Princess. Put these on."

Lucy only pursed her lips and stared at the clothes her spirit was offering her, and then found herself reaching up just to wrap her hand around the small key-shaped pendant on her necklace. She missed Aquarius (still) more than she could put into words, but Lucy had accepted that she'd never see the water-bearing spirit ever again. Lucy had been the one to make sure of that by breaking her key, after all.

But right then, all Lucy could think about was going to see Aquarius. Sure, she probably _needed_ to go and talk to Bickslow, but more than anything, she _wanted_ to go and see her lost spirit. In a way, it almost felt like that was what she needed to do, too, and that was why she was going to go.

Seeing Aquarius again was what she had to do.

* * *

Night came and Bickslow found himself worrying even more than he had been just a few hours earlier. He'd been holding himself back from going out and finding her just so he could explain _why_ he didn't want to have children – not even with her – just because he'd known that she'd needed her space. If the situation had been reversed and it had been Lucy telling him that she didn't want to ever have kids, then Bickslow knew that he would've needed to get out to get some air and a bit of breathing room, too. That was why he'd stayed and let her get that space she obviously needed.

But she'd been gone all afternoon, and Bickslow really was worrying. He thought she'd have returned by then, maybe just to talk, or to tell him that they were done because she couldn't be with someone who didn't want the same things in life. That was the possibility that he was most scared of, because it was the one he most expected, too.

It was the only reason he regretted actually asking her to marry him. No matter how much he loved her and trusted her, there was still that part of him that had constantly worried about her leaving too, because everyone left. And even if she'd promised not to, and he'd really wanted to believe that Lucy was different and that nothing would ever change that, Bickslow couldn't help but think that she would leave over that, because kids was a really big thing and he knew that what he'd told her earlier that day was not something she would have been able to accept in an instant.

He'd always known that, too, but it had never been something he'd worried about that much until things had started getting really serious with Lucy. It wasn't until he'd realised that she was who he really did want to spend the rest of his life with that he understood what that would actually mean: getting married and having children together. That was what most people wanted in life, and it was what he assumed Lucy wanted, too. But Bickslow didn't, and now Lucy knew, and Bickslow didn't know if he'd get a chance to explain _why_ to Lucy.

He'd thought she'd know why already, just because she knew all about his past and why he was the way he was – or at the very least she'd understand once he pointed it out to her – but he knew that she didn't. She just didn't understand that he was truly terrified of having children, and he wanted her to know that. He just couldn't.

Eventually, he went to bed that night. He didn't sleep though, partly because he'd gotten so used to seeing her in bed next to him almost every night, and partly being the near crippling fear that something had happened to her and that was why she hadn't come home yet was consuming him. He just stayed up all night and kept staring at the ceiling, just waiting to hear the front door being unlocked and her ever quiet footsteps coming down the hall.

But it never happened, and by the time Bickslow was awake after dozing off for a little while just before sunrise, his exhaustion and lack of sleep over the last two days alone getting the better of him, he was realising he was still alone in the apartment. Lucy hadn't come back at all, and all there was in the bed beside him was a giant pink ladybug.

That fear that something had happened to her only became stronger as the morning went on. _Maybe she just ended up staying with Levy or someone else, and that's why she's not back yet._ His hands lingered on the taps in the shower after he turned them both off. _Don't freak out just yet. Give her space._

So he went through his usual morning routine, just because he needed something to distract himself because the last thing he needed and wanted to be doing was worrying about Lucy. First it was a shower, like he always did, then it was getting dressed for the day and starting the washing if it needed to be done, making the bed, then starting breakfast because Lucy was still useless at cooking, even if he'd been teaching her when he'd had an opportunity to. And then, it was… Well, they usually went to the guild after breakfast, assuming she was feeling up to it, and that was where Bickslow once again found himself wondering what to do.

He could stay at home and fret and just wait for Lucy to get back. Or, he could go to the guild, maybe see if she was there, or maybe see if anyone knows where she is. _Yeah, that's a good idea._ _I'll go to the guild for a little while._ Going to the guild couldn't be a bad idea. If he didn't manage to find out anything about Lucy or where she was, at the very least it would offer him a distraction, because even if Bickslow knew she needed her space right then, he didn't like it, just because he couldn't stop himself from worrying about where she was and if she was even okay.

He couldn't help it if he was a pessimist and always thought the worst.

Once Bickslow got to the guild that morning, he only needed to look around the large room once to know that Lucy wasn't there. Her team was, and were presently sitting and talking with Wendy and Lisanna at one table, but Lucy herself wasn't there. She wasn't even at the bar and talking to Cana, Mira, or even Evergreen, nor was she with Levy who looked strangely worried as she talked to Gajeel. Bickslow knew he needed to go and ask someone if they'd seen Lucy, and he quickly decided that Levy was a good place to start. If Lucy had stayed with someone else for the night, which Bickslow really hoped was the case, then she would've stayed with Levy. He knew that.

Something close to panic settled in Levy as she saw Bickslow coming over, but she forced a small smile as he sat down opposite them. She could see how tired he looked with his visor gone – something that wasn't so inexplicably rare to see those days – but she chose not to focus on that. "Bickslow. Good morning," she said politely. The Seith mage only offered a courteous yet small smile in return. "How's uh… Lucy?" Levy asked, and she watched the man opposite her closely for a reaction.

But the reaction he gave wasn't exactly the one she expected. He only lifted his head and looked to her in confusion. "What do you mean?" he asked. On one hand, he was relieved because Levy asking about Lucy only made him all the more certain that she'd at least seen her, but on the other, Levy asking how Lucy was only made him worry that she didn't know where his girlfriend was either.

"I… Well, she came to see me yesterday and she… She told me what happened and what you said," Levy began slowly.

Bickslow tried to sink down into his chair. "It's complicated. Please don't judge me for that when you don't understand why."

"N-No! I wasn't, Bickslow. I promise." No, Levy wasn't going to judge Bickslow for not wanting kids. It wasn't even her place to know that or even understand why he didn't want children. She was merely just pointing out that she knew about their situation. Keeping her voice quiet just so those around them wouldn't know what was going on, she said, "But she was upset and confused, and I just assumed that after she took the test she went back home to talk to you. She left in such a hurry I didn't even notice she'd gone until I went to check on her."

"Wait, so… Lucy didn't stay with you?" he asked.

Levy shook her head hesitantly. "No…?" she answered. "I thought she went home."

That was all it took for Bickslow to turn into the frantic and panicked fiancé – though he wasn't quite sure if he was still that anymore – that he'd been stopping himself from turning into. _If she didn't stay with Levy, and she didn't come home, then where is she?_ He was letting that fear that something really had happened to her consume him again. She didn't even have her keys with her, so what if she got herself into trouble? _Don't think about that._

Bickslow only shook his head and stared down at the wood grain of the table and the countless circular stains that overlapped one another. "No… She didn't," he mumbled. "I haven't seen her since she left yesterday."

"Oh… I just… I just assumed…"

"It's fine." It wasn't, but Bickslow just didn't know what else to say. It wasn't Levy's fault Lucy hadn't come back, and if it hadn't been him in the situation, he would've assumed the same of Lucy's location.

But still, where was she? From home, she'd gone to Levy's, upset and confused which Bickslow could understand, and then disappeared into thin air apparently after… _Hang on._ Bickslow lifted his head and looked back to Levy across from him through narrowed eyes. "What did you say she did before disappearing?" he asked.

"She took a—" Her hand suddenly flew to her mouth to cut herself off, and her eyes went wide as she stared at the Seith mage. _He doesn't know._ He had no idea what was going on and Levy couldn't tell him, just like Gajeel couldn't. They couldn't tell him that Lucy was pregnant, something that Levy had found to be something Gajeel had already figured out weeks earlier, because it wasn't their place to do so. It was something Lucy needed to tell Bickslow herself.

"Levy, tell me. _What did she take_."

The Script mage shook her head again quickly and remained silent. Gajeel, who was still sitting next to her, only continued to try and remain as inconspicuous as possible, which really wasn't working at all considering he'd been acting incredibly strange around Bickslow for the last couple of weeks, and it was really beginning to annoy Bickslow, even though he hadn't come into the guild very often just because he'd been trying to look after Lucy.

But what _test_ was Levy talking about? That was driving Bickslow insane right then, because he needed to know. He needed any bit of information he could get, just because it might help him figure out what was going on – because he suddenly had a feeling that there was more to it than what he knew – and where she was.

He let out a groan of frustration before leaning forward over the table and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He just needed to figure it all out, and he didn't know what else to do right then other than run through everything that had happened that he knew of in his head. _She went to see a doctor, came back and randomly asked about having kids, went to Levy's, took some kind of… Test._

 _Kids. Test._

 _No._

Over and over again, he repeated it in his head, trying to get himself to understand it and make sense of it. He'd thought the question about whether or not he wanted children had been a little oddly timed, but he'd just ignored it. After all, it was a conversation they'd needed to have at some point, anyway. But now, all Bickslow could think about _was_ that timing, because suddenly, it didn't seem so odd, especially if the test she'd apparently taken had been a pregnancy test, which Bickslow was assuming it was now. And that…

That explained Lucy's reaction, and it also kind of explained her disappearing.

If she'd suspected she was pregnant, then it made sense for Lucy to wonder where he was on the whole kid stance. She'd been checking to see if he'd still be there for her if it turned out that she was, and now she probably only assumed that he wouldn't be, just because he didn't want to have children. But that was irrelevant. If she was pregnant, he'd still be there for her. He'd be freaking out the entire time and quite possibly for the rest of his life, but he'd still be there, regardless of how he felt about having his own children.

Now though, she was gone. Bickslow knew that she was aware of whether or not she was in fact pregnant, but he didn't, and it only made him worry more.

And even then, if she really was pregnant, how long had she been? Had everything that had been happening with her over the last nearly seven weeks been _because_ she was pregnant? Bickslow almost hoped it wasn't, because of what he did know about pregnancy – which, granted, wasn't much at all – he was sure that she shouldn't have been _that_ sick.

" _How long has Lucy had a heart—"_

Natsu's words were coming back to him then, as well as just how strange everyone (or, the Slayers, more accurately) had been acting at the wedding. From the evil trio who had basically been avoiding him and staring at Lucy all goddamn night, to Erik asking if he wanted stupid mini versions of himself or Lucy, and then to the whole perving session which… Well, Bickslow still didn't really know what to think of that. But now, all Bickslow was thinking was that it was almost as if they'd all known about the baby before Lucy even did, or at the very least they'd suspected it. And that _really_ annoyed Bickslow.

He lifted his head and only glared at the Iron Dragon Slayer for a moment before quickly getting up and setting course for the _Fire_ Dragon Slayer. Bickslow could ask Gajeel straight out if he knew, or even Laxus who was presently at the bar with Master Makarov, but he didn't want to. He figured they'd probably just do exactly what Levy was doing which was refusing to tell him anything he needed to know, anyway, not to mention that that they'd been sitting on what they knew for weeks, too. Natsu, on the other hand, Bickslow could get information out of. He'd always had a bit of a problem with keeping his mouth shut, and judging by what he'd tried to ask about at Yukino and Midnight's wedding, and how odd he'd been acting when visiting Lucy over the last two weeks, Bickslow knew that Natsu knew exactly what was going on.

Well, apart from the whole thing were Lucy was currently missing. Bickslow seriously doubted her team knowing, because if they did know, they'd either be trying to murder his ass for upsetting her, or be out looking for her.

Grabbing Natsu by his scale-like scarf, Bickslow pulled him from the bench and only mumbled, "I need to talk to you about something." He ignored Natsu complaining as he dragged him to the archives in the basement – the only quiet place in the entire guild – but as soon as they were away from the rest of their guild mates, Bickslow only turned to push Natsu back into the wall with his fist still gathered in the scarf. "I need you to tell me what you know."

Natsu raised an eyebrow at the Seith mage and pushed him off. The step back Bickslow took as he looked down to his hands then folded them across his chest only had Natsu wondering just what was going on. _Something isn't right._ "About what?" he asked.

"About Lucy."

"Lucy?" Natsu repeated. "What about her?"

The apprehension was quickly lost once he mentioned Lucy, and instead was replaced by a suspicious glance to the side. Putting that aside, just because Bickslow hadn't expected anything less considering the way he'd been acting lately, he said, "At the wedding at Sabertooth a couple weeks back, you said something. Do you remember what it was?"

Natsu cocked his head to the side and scratched the back of his head. "Did I?"

Bickslow nodded. "You asked me something about Lucy, but then everyone kind of just jumped on top of you for some fucking reason. You asked me how long she'd had a heart, but there was supposed to be more to that question, wasn't there?"

"I… Uh…"

"You heard something, didn't you?"

Happy started whistling suspiciously and made to fly out of the room before Natsu reached up and grabbed his tail. The Exceed wasn't going to leave him there alone. No way. Shrugging, Natsu replied, "I hear lots of things. Dragon Slayers have good hearing."

Bickslow rolled his eyes. Natsu wasn't exactly making it easy for him. "A heartbeat," he explained. "That's what you heard."

"I hear every—"

"You heard more than one."

Natsu only continued to stare at the Seith mage while remaining silent. He didn't know what to say to that, because he didn't even know what he was _allowed_ to say. Cobra – as well as Laxus and Gajeel – had made him promise to keep quiet about what he knew. By under no circumstances was he to tell Bickslow or even Lucy about the heartbeat that had been too quiet and too fast to be Lucy's own. As much as Natsu had wanted to tell them about it, because it felt way too weird to know that his best friend was pregnant when she didn't, he'd kept his mouth shut because he shouldn't have found out in the first place.

But if Bickslow knew what he'd heard, then did that mean Lucy knew, too? Natsu honestly doubted it, which only meant that Bickslow was guessing. And, if that was the case, then it was probably best to just stay quiet, because he really didn't want to be giving Laxus, Gajeel, _and_ Cobra a reason to want to murder him. For anything else, sure, and he'd go all out, too, but not for this. Not when it involved Lucy.

"Natsu," Bickslow began when he realised Natsu wasn't going to say anything. "I really need you to tell me what you know, because I don't know where Lucy is right now—"

"Wait, you don't know where she is?"

Bickslow shook his head. "I… I haven't seen her yesterday afternoon," he admitted. "But Natsu, please, I need to know whether she's pregnant or not, because it's my fault she left and I'm really trying not to freak the fuck out right now."

After a long moment, Natsu finally nodded, then quickly went on to say, "I wanted to tell her, though! But they told me not to because they said she needed to find out on her own."

"Laxus and Gajeel?" Natsu nodded to Bickslow's question. "Cobra, too?" Bickslow added, and when Natsu nodded again, the Seith mage sighed. _So she is pregnant._ If there was an upside to the entire situation, it was that he knew that for certain. Bickslow trusted and believed Natsu. He had no reason not to believe Natsu. Add that to what Levy had let slip, and then Lucy disappearing… Well, yeah, Bickslow was pretty damn certain he'd managed to knock his girlfriend up. When, he didn't know, but he didn't care about that.

All Bickslow cared about was finding Lucy, and just being able to apologise to her and explain everything.

He'd gotten what he needed from Natsu, so Bickslow no longer had a reason to stay. Nodding and keeping his head down – _god, I wish I had my visor right_ now – he slowly stepped back away from Dragon Slayer and turned for the stairs again. "Thanks, Natsu," he mumbled. "Let me know if you see her or anything?"

Natsu nodded. "Yeah," he muttered. "And Bicks?"

Bickslow stopped in his tracks before the stairs and turned his head just slightly to the side.

"I don't know how it's your fault she's missing right now, but I do know that you're the reason she's happy," Natsu continued. "Lucy'll come back."

"I hope so."

* * *

Lucy didn't hesitate to throw herself at the spirit as soon as she saw her, and she most definitely didn't stop herself from turning into one big giant ball of tears as she clung to Aquarius. Though, when it came to the crying part, Lucy was realising that her being pregnant (because she was really assuming she was, considering the tests were supposed to be accurate, plus her doctor assuming she was just based on her symptoms, anyway) might account for the odd episode where she'd almost spontaneously burst into tears over some weird things, like with the series finale to a show she'd seen far too many times. It wasn't just her exhaustion and extreme hatred for her body for making her feel too ill to ever really leave the apartment that was making her cry; it was goddamn hormones.

But that wasn't the cause for her crying then, and Lucy was well aware of that. It was because she'd never quite gotten over having to sacrifice and lose Aquarius, even though it had been nearly a year since it had happened. And when Aquarius only hesitantly hugged the blonde that had all but fallen to her knees beside her and had her arms wrapped around her waist, Lucy couldn't help but let out another strangled sob. "Aq-Aquarius, I-I missed y-you!" she cried.

Aquarius sighed and smiled down at her softly. "It's good to see you again, Lucy."

"I-I'm so, s-so sorry," Lucy stammered. "I shouldn't ha-have… There c-could have…" She only trailed off and buried her face against the spirit's side even more. Seeing Aquarius only had all of those feelings and thoughts that had plagued her for all those months returning.

It wasn't as if Lucy regretted what she did. It was just that she wished there had been another way, one where Aquarius hadn't had to be sacrificed and they still won. She hadn't been able to stop herself from thinking about how there had to have been another option. She'd just let herself get caught up in the spiral she'd been sinking even further into before Bickslow had pulled her out of it, and had just kept thinking of all the possibilities. But every time, it had always just come down to Lucy wondering how things could have ended up if she'd been stronger.

Maybe if she hadn't been so outmatched by Jackal, she wouldn't have had to summon Aquarius in the first place and overexert herself. Or even if summoning Aquarius had been inevitable, maybe if she'd been stronger, she would have been able to hold three gates open, and she might have still been able to keep fighting and she wouldn't have needed to be rescued and protected by Aquarius.

Maybe she'd still _have_ Aquarius if she was just a little bit stronger.

"There wasn't another way," Aquarius supplied. "But that's not why you're here right now."

Lucy looked up. "It… It's not?" she whispered. And then she seemed to remember everything that she'd momentarily forgotten about, not that she was sure how she managed to forget, but she figured it had something to do with how relieved and happy she was to see Aquarius once again. "Oh… O-Of course it's not," she added quietly, and she sunk down onto the large plush pillow that had appeared just behind her on the paved rainbow ground that was seemingly floating in the middle of space.

The spirit frowned down at her former master sitting back on her heels on the pillow. She'd been watching her the entire time, just as the rest of the spirits she had keys for did. Sure, as a kid, Lucy had been a bit of an annoying brat, and Aquarius had always made it quite obvious that she didn't like her, but she'd never really meant it. She cared for Lucy, despite never really admitting it, just like she'd cared for Layla.

She'd seen Lucy change a lot over the years, though. She wasn't that lonely and isolated little kid anymore who only wanted a friend and someone to play with. She'd grown up; she had friends, more than she knew of, too, and she was a hell of a lot stronger than she gave herself credit for. But as much as Aquarius had watched Lucy grow up over all the years she'd known her, she'd also been watching her over the last few months and weeks. She'd seen her when she'd shut herself off from everyone and pretended she wasn't miserable, and then she'd seen what had happened once Bickslow had come into her life. Of course, once those two had finally gotten together, all of Lucy's spirits – Aquarius included – had only joined all of their human friends in celebrating, so to speak. Loke had strangely been the most relieved, though, and he'd only claimed that it had been about time they'd told each other how they felt, and Bickslow especially so.

But Aquarius hadn't really wanted to intervene or get involved with Lucy in any way until her key had reappeared in Lucy's world, which still wouldn't be for a couple more months, but with how things currently were for her former master, she'd seen that there was no other choice. Lucy needed someone to set her back on track, because right then, she was so far off course that it was enough for Aquarius to need to step in.

"So," the spirit began. She folded her arms and continued to watch the quiet blonde stare down at her lap. "You finally managed to get yourself a boyfriend, I see."

Lucy shrugged as she looked down to the ring sitting on her finger. "I… I guess so," she whispered, then sniffled. "Though I don't think he'll like me very much once he finds out that I… That I'm…"

"That's stupid and you know it."

"But it's not," Lucy argued, and already her chocolate eyes were brimming with tears once again. "H-He doesn't want to have kids. At all. A-And it's not like _I_ wanted a baby either, _at least_ not for a few years, anyway. But once Bicks finds out, he'll… He'll hate me and he'll… He'll be so m-mad at me and he'll pr-probably leave." How was any of that stupid? Terrifying, yes, because losing Bickslow was still quite possibly the most frightening part of that situation, but stupid, no.

In Lucy's head, she had every right to be scared of that, too, and it wasn't stupid in the slightest. She was pregnant, unexpectedly, and her boyfriend really didn't want a baby. Ever.

"He won't." Aquarius rolled her eyes and swallowed the urge to drown the woman. Her stubbornness (and stupidity) had never exactly been something Aquarius had _loved_.

"But he w-will, because he doesn't want to have children! I've just… I've screwed everything up," Lucy insisted again.

"Lucy, you didn't even give that idiot of yours a chance to explain himself."

"What was there for him to explain? He just doesn't want kids. That's…" Lucy shook her head. "That's fine," she muttered. It wasn't exactly the truth, because it really wasn't fine, but if she wasn't already pregnant, it would have been a whole lot closer to _fine_ than what it currently was. Sighing, and still looking down to her lap, she added quietly, "Plenty of people don't want to have children. I just never thought Bickslow would be one of those."

The spirit pressed her fingertips to her temples and groaned up towards the twinkling sky. _Must not drown Lucy._ "You're a smart woman, Lucy. _Use your brain_." Lucy could only look up to her with wide eyes – it might have actually been the first time Aquarius had even come close to acknowledging her intelligence, let alone call her anything other than 'stupid' or 'girl' or both and in that order.

But that didn't exactly help Lucy know just what she was supposed to be using her brain for, though. Confusion replaced her surprise and her brow became furrowed. "What's there to think about and, as you put it, use my brain for?" Lucy whispered.

Aquarius rolled her eyes. "You _know_ why Bickslow doesn't want kids."

"I don't!" she cried out. _Why can't Aquarius see that?_ "A-And it doesn't matter, anyway," she mumbled as she looked back down to her hands folded in her lap. It didn't matter because Bickslow didn't want a baby, plain and simple. The _why_ was almost irrelevant now.

"It does matter," the spirit insisted. "Just _think_ , Lucy. He's told you why before."

Lucy groaned and dropped her face to her hands. He hadn't told her before, and Lucy didn't know why Aquarius was insisting otherwise. She was sure she would have remembered something as important as Bickslow making it obvious he didn't want to have children.

But just to indulge her spirit, Lucy did her best to figure out just when or even how Bickslow had managed to tell her something like that, even though she knew it was futile. Aquarius just had to be wrong. He'd told her about his walls and why he even had them, and how he'd ended up joining the guild and meeting his team and Laxus. He'd even told her all about his family, and Lucy had thought she'd learned all there was to learn about Bickslow after he'd finally told her about his past, but apparently not.

 _Unless…_

Unless it was _because_ of his past that he didn't want to have kids, and he hadn't necessarily made it obvious that that was how he felt.

" _They didn't want a kid in the first place, but they had one, and they got stuck with a kid who could see souls and it was just another reason to hate my entire existence. It's not like I can blame them though. No one in their right mind would want that."_

She was remembering all of what he'd said when they'd been in Akane, and as she did, she couldn't help but think that all that had happened in _his_ childhood was part of why he didn't want kids. If that was the case though, Lucy wondered how she hadn't picked up on it. She knew how horrible Bickslow's life had been, his childhood especially, and she knew how he'd never exactly been all that accepting of who he was as a Seith mage for a long time because of his parents, but Lucy had never once thought any of that would make him not want to have kids of his own.

She didn't understand it all though. Lucy knew that. There had to be more to it that she didn't know, because even then, she was only just guessing that his family and past might be the reason behind him deciding he not want his own children.

Maybe it was all because his past was something that still haunted him, though, and maybe it was always going to be something that bothered him no matter how much time passed or how good things got. If Lucy had thought it didn't matter knowing just why Bickslow didn't want kids, she wasn't thinking that anymore. If it really was because of his past, then Lucy wanted to understand all of it.

Lucy didn't need to say anything for Aquarius to know that she'd started seeing how things really were. She didn't completely understand, but Aquarius knew it would only be a matter of time before Lucy knew everything about the situation. But the spirit had done her job. She'd helped Lucy see what she'd already known and helped her see what she'd _needed_ to know. The rest, only Bickslow could explain.

"Now do you see it?" the spirit asked as she watched the blonde only slowly pull her hands from her face to stare down again.

Lucy nodded. "I… I think," she whispered. "B-But I… I don't know why he didn't just tell me _then_. Or… Or back then before I… B-Before I was even pregnant. I would have made made sure to be more careful! Or… Or tried to tell him that it was o-okay…"

"He was going to tell you, but then you left without giving him a chance to."

"Oh… That's right." _I didn't even give him a chance to tell me…_ "I… I need to go talk to him," Lucy added quietly. She wasn't really saying it to Aquarius then; it was more to herself. She slowly pushed herself up from the ground until she was standing again, and as soon as she was, the large pillow she'd been sitting on was disappearing in a small cloud of purple smoke. "I should have let him explain… I should have stayed…"

"Then go," Aquarius ordered. " _Leave_ already."

The corner of her mouth tugged up into a small smile. _There's that hatred._ Because there was no way Aquarius could maintain the _façade_ of her actually caring for Lucy. That was fine, though. No matter how much she tried to hide it and prove that she really did hate her, Lucy knew otherwise, and that was okay. She wouldn't even have it any other way, either.

"Can I… Can I come back again?" Lucy asked.

"No," Aquarius answered quickly. "You know the rules. And besides, do you think I _want_ a brat like you coming back here?"

Lucy nodded and let out the faintest of laughs. "I get it."

The spirit's forced scowl faded, and she looked back to the blonde a soft frown. "But, before you go…" she began, realising that she was just finding a reason to have Lucy stay for just a little bit longer before she returned to her own world. It would be a lie if she said she didn't miss Lucy. "There is one more thing I should tell you."

* * *

Lucy was thankfully returned back to her own world just outside her apartment building. It was nearly dark by the time she was back, the sun setting behind the clouds and on the horizon, but she didn't think much on it. She hadn't thought she'd been in the spirit world for that long, only an hour, really, but maybe she'd been there for longer than she'd originally thought. It wouldn't have been that surprising if she'd just lost track of time with Aquarius.

Not that it really mattered though.

Virgo had retrieved her purse from wherever she'd left it, which she _assumed_ to be on Levy's bathroom floor, even though Virgo hadn't said much of anything to her before she was disappearing to her own world again. _I'm definitely going to need to explain my disappearing act to Levy later._ She'd completely forgotten about it until Virgo had handed it to her, actually, but she'd been thankful for it because it held her house keys, and as she tried the front door after climbing up the stairs to their floor, she was just a little surprised to find it locked.

But as she pushed the door open, Lucy was even more surprised to find the apartment void of all light except for the small amount that was streaming in through the window near the lounges. "Bicks?" she called out into the too-quiet apartment. A sense of unease swept over her as she made her way through it, switching on lights as she went. _Maybe he's just in the bathroom or the bedroom._ "Where are you?"

Except again, she got no response, and after she checked every room in the apartment, she became all too aware of the fact that Bickslow wasn't there. That didn't really make any sense though. She hadn't been gone that long, yet Bickslow had managed to go out in that time and make their home almost feel like she'd been the first person in it for a while.

Lucy knew that was silly, too. That couldn't have been the case.

 _Maybe he's just gone to the guild._ She needed to go talk to him, and evidently find him, too, because she just didn't really feel like waiting around for him to come home. She was bound to drive herself insane if she did that. But firstly, before going anywhere or doing anything, she needed to change out of the dress Virgo had given her to wear to cross realms. God knows where her other clothes were, though she hoped Virgo or maybe Loke would bring them back to her soon. She'd really liked the shirt she'd been wearing.

Sighing, Lucy pushed herself up from where she'd been sitting on the edge of the bed and staring silently at the empty bedroom, and began pulling at the ribbons that held her dress closed and together as she slowly strode over to the wardrobe to grab a hanger. It was as Lucy opened one of the folding doors that she saw something that only made her throat feel like it had a hand around it.

It was nearly empty, and that was something she'd only seen when she'd first moved in and they'd been cleaning out all of the drawers and the wardrobe to figure out where all of their clothes would fit. It had been decided that Bickslow would get most of the wardrobe, where Lucy would only use it to hang her dresses and some of her skirts, where the majority of her stuff would be in one of the many drawers. But right then, a good portion of all of Bickslow's hanging shirts and pants - and even some of his clothes that were kept in the drawers built into the wardrobe – were gone, and Lucy just didn't understand it.

Why was it all gone? If it had just been a few things missing, she might have just assumed he'd gone off on a sudden job or something and would be gone for a few days or maybe a week, but she knew that wasn't the case. That unease – or maybe it was the nausea coming back since she hadn't taken another one of the tablets she'd been prescribed to take multiple times a day – she'd felt before was only coming back and turning into full-blown panic.

She didn't understand why he was gone. She looked around the entire apartment for some sort of note, something that maybe said _'I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore,'_ or something like that. Maybe asking about whether or not he wanted kids one day had scared him off?

 _Maybe he figured out I'm already pregnant._

She shook her head as she quickly pulled on a different shirt. Bickslow was smart, but there was no way he could know about the baby already. _She'd_ only just found out, so there was no way he could've figured it out on his own.

But just the thought of Bickslow really having left her only made her hands tremble, her chest tighten, and her stomach feel like it was doing somersault after somersault. There wasn't even anything for her to actually throw up anymore (the last time she'd eaten was probably breakfast, and that had left the same way it had gone down before she'd even gone to the doctor that morning), yet she had to. Because she _always_ had to, and it was driving her mad. But just the idea of Bickslow leaving for any reason had her feel even worse.

Regardless of what the case was though, because Lucy was sure that there was more – something just didn't feel right and nothing seemed to add up in her frenzied mind – to Bickslow leaving, she knew that she needed to see him. No matter what had happened, or what _happens_ , she needed to see Bickslow.

She needed to talk to him, and explain, and _apologise_ because it wasn't what she'd wanted to happen at all. But aside from that, she needed him to explain it all to her, because she just didn't understand any of it and she wanted to – _needed_ to, even.

So Lucy went straight to the guild. She didn't know where to begin to find Bickslow, because she still found it hard to believe that he'd managed to disappear so quickly, but she knew someone in the guild would. Except when she walked into the guild that evening, she barely had a chance to notice just how deathly silent the guild had become as soon as she'd stepped through the doors before her team were throwing themselves at her and completely surrounding (and almost suffocating) her.

"Lucy!"

"You're back!"

"Welcome back, Lucy."

"We missed you around here."

She listened to each of them all shout over the top of each other about how they'd missed her and so on, but she didn't exactly pay much attention to it. She'd only been gone for a couple of hours at most, and sure, she hadn't managed to come into the guild for a few days, but there was really no need for her team to cling to her, even though the massive hug she was getting was really nice.

But she wasn't there for a hug. She was there to find out if anyone knew where Bickslow was. She could talk to her team later. Pushing all off them off her as they all continued to seemingly fret over her for some reason (she wasn't even sure what any of them were saying anymore, that was how quickly they were talking), she only looked between them all before cutting in. "Guys, guys," she began, trying to calm them all down so she could actually talk. "I'm fine. I don't know why you'd think otherwise."

They each only gave her a blank stare before they all said, "Huh?"

Ignoring that – _everyone is being so weird right now_ – she continued, "I'd love to stay for a little while, but I really need to go and find Bickslow. Do you… Do you know where he might be?"

Natsu looked up to Happy flying above him and shrugged. He could vaguely remember hearing something about where Bickslow had disappeared to, but he couldn't remember the details. It had been two weeks since then, anyway, and Natsu had never exactly been known for having the best memory, even where Lucy was concerned.

Gray only scratched the back of his head as he looked to Erza. "Akane? I think he said?" he guessed.

"He mentioned an uncle," Erza added. "He said he'd be staying with him should anyone need to find him."

 _So he's with Caspian._ Lucy could only wonder just why Bickslow had felt the need to run off to Akane Beach all of a sudden, and what was still bouncing around in her head only made her worry even more.

Lucy only offered a quick thank you to her team before she was rushing back out the doors, leaving them and the rest of the guild in stunned silence. The last trains for the night would be leaving shortly, and she desperately needed to be on one of them, because she needed to get to Bickslow.

* * *

 _Bickslow's side of the story was supposed to be in this chapter, but I decided that it works better in the next one. Besides, this one was getting a little long, anyway._

Also, in case no one picked up on it (I tried to make it clear, but I did a horrible job of it because I don't know much about anything), Lucy is supposed to have 'hyperemesis gravidarum'. Go read up on that if you want to know more about it.

 _On another note, this chapter was kind of hard to write. It's kind of funny how all I wanted to do whilst I was still at uni was write, but now that I'm no longer going (yeah, there's a whole lot of shit about that on my tumblr from a couple of weeks ago, but long story short is that I'm no longer going to uni and no longer studying to become a nurse), I'm finding that I don't want to write as much. Oh well. I'll get back into it. It doesn't help that this chapter was just... I don't know what it was. The next chapter of Space is where it strays from my original plan for this prompt, so it should be interesting. I think it works better though, so hopefully you'll all enjoy that once I get it written._

 _But anyway... I hope you liked this chapter! Reviews are, as always, appreciated._

 _Until next time. Chances are I'll be putting all of my time into this story since there's only two more chapters left. Three, maybe, if it gets a little too long... We'll see._

 _\- April_


	18. (VII) I'm With You

_**CHAPTER 16: SPACE**_  
 _ **I'M WITH YOU**_

* * *

The days where no one heard from Lucy turned into weeks, and the longer she was gone, the more Bickslow retreated into himself and returned to his former self. By the end of the first week, no one in the entire guild had heard from her or been able to contact her, and Bickslow hadn't been able to stop himself from believing that she wasn't coming back. Not even Cana had been able to find out where she'd gone with her cards, and even then, it wasn't like anyone would've been able to get a hold of her in the first place. She hadn't taken a communications lacrima with her, wherever she'd disappeared to.

But still, Bickslow didn't even know how he was supposed to believe anything other than the fact that she was gone and wasn't coming back. It was what always happened when he was involved. He always pushed people away, and that was what he'd done to Lucy. He'd pushed her away because he'd wanted to be selfish for just a little while longer, because he'd always known that once she found out he didn't want kids, what they had would be put at risk. Then again, he'd been risking it by not telling her to begin with. He'd hoped they'd be able to sort it out, though. Maybe Lucy would've been able to live without ever having kids, or maybe he would've even gotten over his fear of having them. It was doubtful, of course, but it had just been one of the many scenarios he'd come up with.

It was just that the scenario that had been most likely had actually happened, and he hated himself for it. He had never wanted to push Lucy away or make her feel like she couldn't be with or maybe even trust him. If only he'd been able to explain everything to her before she'd left. Maybe she would have understood and not just assumed that it was just a simple preference or something.

And now, because of all of it, Lucy was missing. No one knew where she was, what she was doing, whether or not she was coming back, or if she was even okay. That was all Bickslow had thought about since the last time he'd seen her, because when it had only taken a week for him to accept that she wouldn't be coming back and that he'd fucked it all up, just like he always did, it had taken him just days to start really worrying about whether or not she was okay. Lucy was god knows where, carrying his child (which in itself was something that he hadn't stopping thinking about for all of two seconds because it was simultaneously freaking him the fuck out and somehow making him just a little happy), and without her keys. Loke and Virgo could force their gates open, Bickslow knew that much, but if she found herself in any kind of trouble, she wouldn't be able to really protect herself.

If _anything_ happened to Lucy, he would never forgive himself, because he would be the cause of it. If he hadn't pushed her away again, she wouldn't be missing in the first place.

By the time two weeks had gone by without a single word or anything about Lucy's whereabouts, Bickslow had returned to the person he'd formerly been. Every single wall Lucy had pulled down had been put back up, every piece of himself that he'd let everyone else see had been hidden away, and he'd retreated in on himself. Once again, he'd been left alone, and he only had himself to blame for it.

When he did manage to go into the guild, which had only been once or twice in those two weeks since Lucy had left because he'd spent most of that time sulking or trying to find out where she'd gone, everyone had quickly realised just how much he'd changed. The return of his metal visor had been the first thing that anyone had noticed. It had been seen less and less over the last few months. He'd still worn it on jobs or just every now and then because he could, but when he'd been in the guild, he'd gone without it most of the time. They'd all known that it was somehow because of Lucy, but that was all they'd known. But aside from the visor, it was the way he'd acted. When Lucy had been there, he'd been happier, almost. He'd been seemingly content with everything before Lucy had come into his life, or at least he'd acted that way, but it was only when he'd become completely miserable and borderline bitter from her leaving that they'd really noticed all that she'd done for him. Anyone would have been lucky to get the guy to shut the hell up for five minutes when Lucy was around him, but with her gone, he only ever opened his mouth to tell anyone who thought she'd come back that they were wrong.

She wasn't coming back because of him, and he didn't understand how they could all just still be so full of hope that she would. She was gone because of something he'd said, and he didn't know if there was anything in the world that could change that.

By the end of the second week, though, Bickslow had had enough. He hadn't been able to wait around for her to never come back any longer. He hadn't been able to sit in that silent apartment and see all of her things and pretend that he knew what to do with them. It just had been too hard to be there when she wasn't, because he'd gotten so used to seeing her there and hearing her laugh at something from whatever room he was in that the silence had become so horrible so quickly that all he'd wished for was it all to end.

He'd always known that losing Lucy would end up breaking him and he wouldn't be able to cope with it, but it had ended up being so much worse than he'd thought. He'd hated the feeling of knowing that it was once again all because of him, and he'd just wanted it all to be over.

But he'd stopped himself from going too far that time. Some things were irreversible, and he'd remembered that. He'd remembered what Lucy had said when he'd told her what he'd done when he'd still been a teenager. A permanent fix to a temporary problem. So his problem then wasn't exactly temporary, but he'd still been through hell and back more than once, and he was stronger than that.

And even then, even if Lucy didn't love him anymore, and she found out about what he'd been too close to actually trying to do, Bickslow hadn't thought she'd be very happy with him, to put it lightly. And Caspian wouldn't be, either. Bickslow knew that that kind of thing hurts people, that he knew first-hand, and the last thing he'd wanted to do was hurt either of them any more than he already had. He just couldn't do that to them.

But Bickslow still hadn't been able to stay at home. The longer he did, the harder it was, and the more he wanted to do something incredibly stupid.

So he left.

There hadn't been anything there for him with Lucy gone, and it had come to the point where he hadn't trusted himself to be there or be completely alone. It wasn't like he'd been able to tell anyone like Laxus or Freed or Evergreen, or maybe even Gajeel or Natsu, that he'd needed someone to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. No one else knew about his past, and Bickslow planned on keeping things that way. So with no other options, Bickslow had headed back to Akane Beach, just because he hadn't had anywhere else to go and he'd needed the one person he hadn't managed to alienate in his entire life.

Bickslow had only explained the basics to Caspian when he'd asked what was going on. He'd learned about how they'd gotten engaged and about the apparent baby, too, and how she'd left and he hadn't seen her for two weeks. Caspian had only told him then that there were facilities in Akane that would be able to help him, because Bickslow had told him all about how he'd been feeling too – it happened when he'd really just ended up blurting out more than he'd intended – but that wasn't what Bickslow wanted. He'd coped on his own before when things had been bad, and he'd just find a way to cope that time around, too. No facility, hospital, or doctor or anything of the sort would help, because the only thing that would make anything change would be Lucy coming back, and he'd stopped believing that would happen.

So Caspian had let him stay. It was summer there, and summer had always been one of the busiest times of the year for Akane Beach despite it basically being summer all year round. He'd tried convincing him to help him in the jewellery store like he'd done when he'd been a teenager, but Bickslow hadn't been interested. He'd just wanted to stay in bed all day and stare out at the beach through the windows.

It had taken Bickslow an entire week to do anything other than that. He'd stayed inside whilst Caspian had gone to work, and the only time he'd even left his room was to venture out into the kitchen to maybe get something to eat, to shower and make himself feel like something close to a human being again, or to go and sit on the edge of the back deck to watch the sun set over the ocean and wait for the sky to light up with the countless glowing stars.

That was what Bickslow had done every night since getting there. As the days went on and it got closer to a month of Lucy being gone – he'd known she was still gone, just because he'd made sure that anyone in the guild knew to let him know if she did come back – he'd become slightly more willing to not spend all of his time in bed. He'd joined Caspian for breakfast once or twice that week, managed to let his uncle drag him to the jewellery store for a few hours just so he wasn't stuck in a sweltering house all day once, and started swimming again, too. He'd never been a strong swimmer as a kid, but after he'd moved to Akane Beach with Caspian when he'd been a teenager, he'd gotten better, and it had become something he'd actually kind of enjoyed. So he'd started going in the morning, right as the sun rose again, because when he hadn't been able to sleep at all at night, he'd just started staying up. Watching the sun set, staring up at the stars in the cloudless sky, and watching the sun once again rise.

And each night as he sat there, just staring up at the night sky for so many hours, Bickslow had only been able to hope and wonder that wherever Lucy was, she was okay, and maybe, just maybe, she was looking up at that same sky.

* * *

Lucy set her umbrella down against the wall and then knocked on the bright red door. She waited anxiously until it was unlocked and opened just a few moments, and she gave Caspian a weak smile once the door was open. "Hi, Cas," she whispered. She only found herself relieved to be pulled into a hug by the man. If Bickslow was there, then he no doubt would have told Caspian something about the situation (she assumed it to only be something about how she'd asked if he wanted kids earlier in the day and it had just spooked him, maybe) that Bickslow didn't even really know the half of, but Caspian didn't seem to hate her or anything even close to even disliking her.

He just seemed really glad to see her.

"It's so good to see you, Lucy," Caspian said softly. He stepped back just to close the door behind her and then smiled down at her. "How've you been?"

"I've been better," she admitted.

Caspian nodded and walked over to the narrow kitchen on one side of the room. _Understandable._ He started pulling things from the fridge, then asked over his shoulder, "Did you want anything to eat or drink?"

"No, thank you." She really just felt too sick to eat anything, anyway. And even if she wasn't feeling like her stomach actually was out to make her life a living hell, she wasn't there to eat. "Is um…" she began again as she glanced down the hall quickly. "Is Bickslow here?"

Caspian sighed and nodded once again. He knew Lucy was there to talk to Bickslow. Her visit had been completely unexpected, especially at nine on a Friday night, but Caspian was so glad she was there right then. She needed to be there, because he knew that the two had a _lot_ to talk about. Now though, Caspian could only hope that they'd sort things out and his nephew would go back home _with_ Lucy. It wasn't that he minded Bickslow being there, because he was always going to be welcome there. It was just that Caspian didn't particularly enjoy having his nearly twenty-four-year-old nephew sulking and moping around his house. Granted, he had a good reason to be, but Caspian just hadn't had any clue what to do with him over the last two weeks he'd been there, and he'd been so incredibly worried about him, too.

Lucy being there, though – it was a really good thing. Caspian was sure of that. "He's probably down in his room," the older man finally said quietly. "The one at the end of the hall."

She nodded and then silently made her way down there. The door was ajar, and so she gently pushed it open to peek into the room. "Bicks?" She stepped into the dark room to see the Seith mage sitting up on the bed next to the tall windows he'd been reclining on, and gave him a small smile. "Hi," she whispered.

"You…" That was all Bickslow could manage to get out of his mouth before he was quickly getting up and taking just a few quick strides to get to Lucy, then pulling her into the tightest hug he could muster. "God, I am so happy to see you right now," he breathed. He didn't even give Lucy a chance to respond before he was stepping back just enough to actually _look_ at her, and as his hands slid down from her cheeks, to her shoulders and down her arms, he tacked on just as quickly, "Are you okay? Are you hurt or anything?"

"W-What? No," Lucy replied.

He quickly wrapped his arms around her again and sighed in actual relief. "Thank god." Bickslow couldn't even describe how it actually felt – other than relieved - to know she was okay. The one thing he'd refused to let himself believe all that time was that something really had happened to her, that she wouldn't be _able_ to ever come back. That was just one thought that really would mean the end of _him_. He wouldn't come back from something like that happening to Lucy because the guilt would've just absolutely destroyed him. Just the _thought_ of completely losing Lucy had been enough for Bickslow.

But she was okay. She was in one piece and she was right there in front of him, and Bickslow didn't think he'd ever been happier or more relieved in his entire life. The fact she seemed almost tense right then was something he wasn't going to think about just yet, even if deep down he seemed to know that it only meant the worst, was almost forgotten. Right then he just needed to hold her because he hadn't in what felt like an eternity because part of him almost didn't know if it was real or not. "Fuck, I… I missed you so m-much and I was s-so worried about you," he stammered with his face buried in the crook of her neck. If he could care about the fact he was crying, he would, but she'd seen him cry more than he cared to admit and he just didn't care. Especially not right then, because he hadn't seen his sort-of fiancé for _thirty-two_ days and he was just really fucking glad.

Lucy couldn't help but feel more confused than she had been just five minutes earlier. She didn't understand why he was so upset and why he seemed so unhinged, and now she was worried about _him_. She pushed his head up from where it was on her shoulder just so she could look at his eyes, and he dropped his forehead to rest gently against hers. "I went home and you weren't there," Lucy whispered.

"I couldn't stay there," he began to explain, and he shook his head lightly. "You… You were gone and I… I couldn't stay there and w-wait for you to not come back any longer. I waited, a-and I tried looking for you but I couldn't and I just… I couldn't stay there."

"I don't understand," she whispered again. She pulled herself out of his grasp and stepped back, and tried her very best to not focus on the hurt that flashed in his eyes when she did so before continuing, "How can you say you waited and you tried looking for me? You… You ran away. You _didn't_ wait."

He stepped back after sending one of the babies flying into the door to close it – Caspian didn't need to hear them arguing, which is what they were apparently doing now. _Is she mad?_ "But I did wait!" He tried so hard to keep himself from shouting, but he couldn't do anything to stop his voice from trembling. "I waited for weeks, Lucy."

 _Weeks? How is that even… Oh… Oh no._ Her train of thought about just how Bickslow could have supposedly waited for weeks was quickly halted. Hell, the train might as well have run off the damn tracks, because it was never coming back. _Weeks_. Lucy had absolutely no idea how long she had been gone for, and that was something she was only just remembering and realising. It might have only been an hour or so for her, but for everyone else, for _Bickslow_ , it hadn't been.

She almost hated herself for forgetting something as important as how time flowed differently in the two worlds. _She_ was a Celestial Spirit mage. _She_ was the one that was supposed to know all about her spirits and by extension their world. Yet _she_ was the one who had forgotten, and she really didn't know how she'd forgotten something like that, because it had screwed up her life more than once.

Lucy only stared down at the ground and held her eyes closed just to hold back her tears, and eventually asked in a small voice, "How long was I gone?"

"A month."

That was all it took for the tears to start falling. "I-I'm so s-sorry, I…" A month. She'd disappeared for an entire month without telling a single soul. She'd left Bickslow for a month, and whilst she'd been thinking about just why he didn't want kids and talking to Aquarius, he'd been… Well, she didn't really know what Bickslow had been doing.

But he'd waited. And he'd apparently looked for her. And all Lucy could do was worry about him and what _he'd_ been going through. She couldn't even begin to imagine what he'd thought, either. "I d-didn't know," she stammered. "I was… I was in the s-spirit world a-and time is different there…" She trailed off as Bickslow stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her once again, and she buried her face against his chest with his chin on top of her head. "I'm sorry, B-Bicks."

He only held her still like that for an unmeasurable moment before he shifted his hands and gently lifted her up, then carefully turned to sit back down on the bed with Lucy almost curling up in his lap between his crossed legs. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable, but Bickslow didn't care much. All he cared about right then was Lucy. There was so much he didn't understand, so much _she_ didn't understand, either, and all Bickslow wanted was to know everything because he was just so goddamn confused about it all now, but all of that could wait just a little longer. First, he needed to make sure Lucy was okay, and right then, she really wasn't. He wasn't either, but she was more important.

So he just held her and listened to her apologise over and over again for something he didn't really understand, partly because it was what he thought she needed him to do, and partly because he really didn't want to let go of her any time soon. Once she'd stopped and all that was heard was a stray muffled whimper and sniffle, he still kept lightly running his hand up and down her back and trying to hold her as close to him as humanly possible. Then, when she wasn't shaking half as much as she had been when she'd first seemingly broken down, he finally spoke.

"So… You were in the, uh… spirit world?" he asked. His voice was barely above a whisper, but he didn't need to be any louder. And of course, there were probably better and more important things he could've asked first instead of that, but he almost didn't want to. Not yet, anyway.

She nodded against his shoulder. "Y-Yes," she answered. "Aquarius s-summoned me."

"Aquarius? You saw Aquarius then?"

She nodded again and Bickslow was sure he saw the smallest of smiles on her lips for just a second. "She's stuck there now because she no longer has a key." _For now, anyway_ – but that she didn't need to tell Bickslow. _Maybe later._ "B-But I… I was at Levy's a-and then Virgo came and told me I h-had to go to the spirit world. I didn't want to, because I… Because I needed to talk to y-you. But then she said Aquarius wanted me there, and I…"

"You had to go," he finished for her. "I get it." If it had been any other spirit wanting her to go to their world, Lucy probably wouldn't have gone, especially if she'd been planning and coming to talk to him about what he thought. But because it was Aquarius who had wanted her there, Bickslow understood that it was more of a case that Lucy had had no other choice but to go.

"I didn't know I was gone for so long though," she continued. "I… I forgot that time flows differently there, a-and it only felt like… Like an hour for me. I didn't know it had been so long for you. I'm… I'm so sorry, Bickslow. Are you… _Were_ you okay?"

He shook his head. "Don't worry about me. I'm better now that I know you're safe," he whispered. He didn't want to talk about him right then, or at all, really. He knew he'd have to eventually, because she'd pull it out of him one way or another, but it wasn't going to happen then, because right then it was still all about Lucy. "Are _you_ okay?"

"I… Not really. I n-need to tell you something."

"Then tell me," he said softly.

She looked back down to her lap and closed her eyes just as another warm tear slid down her already tear-stained cheek, and she softly said, "I'm p-pregnant." Then, before Bickslow could say anything, she quickly continued, "B-But I didn't mean t-to, I p-promise! I… I didn't want this a-and I'm s-so, s-so…" She trailed off as he gently tilted her head up so she was looking at him. "…Sorry."

"It's okay."

Her brow furrowed and she shook her head quickly. "No, it's… It's not okay. I didn't mean t-to and I… I screwed up a-and now I'm pregnant and I don't know w-what to do, b-but it's a-all my fault and I really am so, so s-sorry, Bicks. I—" She was cut off by Bickslow's lips on hers, something she'd long since learned was his favourite way of getting her to shut up, and was then left staring and trying to figure out just why the fuck he was _smiling_.

"Lucy, it's okay, really," he said. "I already knew, by the way."

"You… You did? H-How?"

"Levy sort of let it slip when I asked if she'd seen you the day after you left," he began to explain. "Or, well… She kind of just said enough for me to figure out the rest on my own. But really, I'm kind of surprised I didn't figure it out on my own earlier. I mean, I probably should have guessed you were actually knocked up when your tits were bigger."

"H-Hey! Don't joke around right now! This is… This is serious!" she spluttered, but she couldn't help but be a little amazed at how red her face no doubt was, especially after she quickly glanced down to her more than ample chest and quietly added, "B-But… Are they? R-Really?"

"I wasn't joking. And oh yeah. _Definitely_. And besides," he squeezed her just a little bit tighter and gently nuzzled her cheek. "I've been completely miserable because I haven't seen you in basically a month, and I'm happy right now because I didn't think I'd ever see you again. Just give me a little bit of a break."

Lucy frowned. "I'm still so sorry. I n-never meant to leave."

"It's okay. What matters is that you're here now. And, you know, I… I would never stop you if you wanted to leave, if you… If you didn't want to be with me anymore," he said quietly, and his smirk from just a few moments earlier was nowhere to be seen. He needed to be serious then, just like the situation called for. "But I really hope you still do, because I… I really do need you. Not just because I miss you like crazy whenever you're gone, but… But because I can't really do anything without you."

"Bickslow, I would never do that."

"And I'm glad, but… I still wouldn't blame you if you did ever want to, you know, since… Since I don't want kids and you're…"

"And I'm pregnant," she whispered, finishing his sentence for him.

Bickslow nodded. "But it's really not why you think. I wanted to explain it to you when you asked me, because I knew you wouldn't understand unless I told you _why_ I don't want kids. When you didn't come back because you were in the spirit world I couldn't help but think the worst, and you know that I always do that. That's just… That's just what I do."

"I know, Bicks, and I also know that it's because of your past and your family. Or, well, at least I think that has something to do with it. I didn't even realise until Aquarius made me think about it, to be honest…"

"That was why she called you there?"

Lucy nodded then. "That, and for something else, but I'll tell you about that later," she replied. "I was… Basically a ball of tears of Levy's bathroom floor and I wasn't thinking about anything, like _why_ you don't want kids. I was just worrying about how I'd tell you because I didn't… I _don't_ want to lose you."

She only found herself letting out some kind of squawk and smiling when Bickslow sighed and fell back on the bed, of course pulling her with him, then shifted so he had one leg draped over her own and his arms were wrapped around her shoulders, and then quickly kissed her. Twice, actually. "Cosplayer."

 _Make that three times._

"You're stuck with me until _you_ get sick of me," he said, and somehow, it almost made her feel like she had actual butterflies in her stomach. "As long as _you_ love me, I'm with you, okay? Nothing is ever going to change that. You could hate me and I'll still be in love with you. You could actually try and murder me and I'd still love you."

"W-Well, I don't think I'm ever going to hate you or try to kill you…"

"Good. But I'm still always going to be with you," he said softly. "Even when you're knocked up."

"But you don't want to have a baby," she whispered sadly again. "And that's okay, you know. I… I can deal with that. I need you more than I need a baby so I could… I could get an abortion. I should still be able to…"

Bickslow frowned and shook his head. He didn't particularly ever want kids, sure, but he really didn't want to Lucy to do something like that. It was his child too, so surely he'd be allowed some kind of say in the matter. "Please don't," he said, then quickly added, "Not unless it's what you want to do, I mean. But if it means anything, I don't want you to. And yeah, I know – _no uterus, no opinion_ , but still, I… I would like it if you didn't get one."

Lucy let out a quiet huff of laughter and for a moment she almost forgot how confused she was. He could always cheer her up when she needed it the most, and right then was no different. But she still didn't understand. How could Bickslow not want kids, but want her to keep the baby? That just didn't make any sense, though whether that was really just because it didn't make one iota of actual sense, she was getting too tired to even think straight, or it was because her baby brain had decided to kick in (she could use that as an excuse now, and she'd already decided that if she really did decide to keep the baby, she'd be using it often), she had no idea. It could be one or all, really.

"But… You don't want children," she said slowly. At that point, it really was her own argument, and that time, Bickslow couldn't help but smile at it. He knew how confusing and slightly ridiculous was.

"Well, when I say that, it's not quite the truth," he admitted.

"…Huh?"

He rolled his eyes at the more than dazed and confused looked on her face. With her right in front of him, so close that if he moved much his nose would brush against the tip of hers, he could see how tired she was. It wasn't that surprised, because he'd come to learn that she'd been more than exhausted lately (well, before she'd disappeared for a month, anyway) even though she spent most of her days in bed, and after the day she'd had, he really wouldn't have blamed her for being half asleep before ten o'clock.

He imagined she'd had quite the stressful day – because to her it was still the same day, which he was trying to wrap his head around – between getting god knows how many vials of blood taken and sent off to the lab in the morning, finding out she was pregnant, going to a completely different realm for a little while, and then coming all the way out to Akane Beach. Bickslow was kind of exhausted just thinking about all of that, even though he'd only woken up a few hours earlier.

Quietly, he only said instead, "How about we finish this conversation in the morning after you've had some sleep? You look like you need it."

 _I do, but…_ "No, now. I want to have this conversation now."

"Ah, well… In that case…" The Seith mage sighed again, then softly continued, "If I had to be perfectly honest, I really wouldn't mind having kids. It's not so much that I just don't want to, because in a way I kind of do. And it's really not because I don't like kids, either, because I do. You know, they're great, and I do love them because they're always so happy and full of energy."

"So why don't you want kids?"

"Because I'm terrified of having them," he admitted. Then, before Lucy could say that being scared of having kids was probably a natural reaction at first, he added, "And not just in the way that any person would be scared at first because, you know, having kids is a really huge thing and it means such a massive change."

If anything, that was the part that Bickslow had the least problems with. He wasn't scared of his life changing for _any_ reason, because his life had already changed so much with Lucy in it, and with Lucy, his life could only change for the better. Even with a baby, it would still be for the better, because a _baby_ , Bickslow really wouldn't mind having. Babies were awesome, even though he hadn't exactly spent much time around them at all. For a baby, Bickslow would gladly have his life turn upside down once again.

Just… You know… It would be great if that baby could stay a baby forever, or they were able to skip the ages of two to sixteen so Bickslow had no chance of royally fucking up their life. That was why he didn't want kids, because he was so scared of ruining their life before it had really even begun. He couldn't do that to a child, especially one that was his own.

"I just… I'm scared of having a kid and them ending up like me," he whispered after a long pause. "I'm a mess."

"You're not a mess," Lucy insisted before she gave him a small smirk and said, "But even if you are, you're still the hottest mess and that's what's important."

Bickslow rolled his eyes but a smile tugged at his lips. So he could probably take home the award for hottest mess, and somehow that did make him feel just a little better, but it really wasn't that important. He couldn't blame Lucy for trying, though. "I am a mess," he said softly again. "And you know that it's because I had a fucked up life that I'm even like this in the first place, and I just… I can't stand the thought of my own kid growing up like I did, because it sucked, you know? That's not a life I would even wish on my worst enemy, because knowing your parents hated you because of something that wasn't even your fault to begin with really fucking hurts."

"I know, Bickslow."

The Seith mage sighed and pulled his arm out from under Lucy then turned his wrist so the inside of his forearm was facing her. "A-And… And I do shit like this because of it."

Her fingers gently traced down the inside of his arm to his elbow and over the series of thin scars that marked the skin. They were all but scratches now, but Lucy knew what they were and that they were most definitely not old. "Bickslow… You didn't try to…"

He shook his head at that. "No, not… Not _that_." He pulled his arm back and wound it back around her shoulders. "But I just… I had to… I had to do something because you weren't there and I didn't know where you were or if you were even _alive_ and I knew you were pregnant too and I was just so worried about you and I just—"

"You need to breathe," Lucy interrupted suddenly, and Bickslow nodded and let out a shaky breath before continuing.

"But I just didn't know what to do, other than… Other that that, because I didn't want to… Well, you know."

"I'm proud of you, too."

He smiled weakly. "Kinda proud of myself, too," he muttered. "But… But if my own kid ever felt like I do, or ever tried to hurt themselves for any reason, I… I wouldn't cope with that. At all. And I'd blame myself for it, too, because it would be my fault they felt that way anyway."

As a parent, it would be Bickslow's job to make sure his child would never feel that way. It would be his duty to make sure they never even came close to reaching the lows he had, or knew the pain that he had. If he could keep them in goddamn bubble-wrap and protect them from the world and everything that was in it, he probably would. He would do anything to make sure they were happy and they stayed that way, like any parent would, but with Bickslow, he knew that there was no better way of making sure that happened than by just not having them at all.

But obviously, that just wasn't how things were going to happen, because accidents happen, and he really didn't know how to feel about it. Still. On one hand, he was kind of happy because it meant they'd be having a baby (well, maybe, depending on what Lucy wanted), and he liked that. On the other hand, he was really fucking terrified because it meant they'd be having a kid, because that baby whose life Bickslow couldn't fuck up yet because they'd be too little would eventually grow up, and they'd become a child, and he was so scared of them having the childhood that he did. He didn't even really want to risk it happening.

"And… And then what if they're a Seith mage like me?" he asked quickly. "That's a really fucking horrible thing to be, I'm not even kidding."

"Bickslow…"

"It's true, though, especially as a kid. And I'm like this _because_ I'm a Seith mage. If I wasn't one, my parents probably wouldn't have hated me as much. I wouldn't have had to figure it all out on my own, either."

"I don't understand," Lucy said softly. "Why are you scared of them being a Seith mage like you?"

"Because my parents—"

"You're not your parents though," she interrupted him once again. "You know, if I… If I do decide to keep the baby, which I have no idea what I want to do right now, and they do end up being able to use Seith magic, then I hope _you_ wouldn't hate them for it."

"Of course not."

"Then I'd hope that when the time came, you'd be there to teach them about it and how to control it and everything. I think they'd really appreciate having an amazing Seith mage as a teacher, rather than learning magic from books and experience like you and I did."

"Well, yeah. Of course I'd teach them," Bickslow said. He'd be a jerk not to teach them and to make them learn like he was forced to do so. He'd also be a pretty fucking horrible father if he hated his kid just because of whether or not he was able to use a type of magic that was because of him, anyway. He'd never hate his own child. Not for _anything_.

"Then what does your magic have to do with you not wanting to have children?" she asked again.

His brow furrowed. He could've sworn he'd just told her why. "Because my—" But he stopped himself that time, because he couldn't really use his parents as a reason for not wanting kids anymore.

Lucy was right. He wasn't his parents – he wasn't his _father_ – and Bickslow didn't know why he'd never really thought about that.

His parents had hated him because of who he was and what he was capable of doing. They'd let their hatred of his magic take over, and it had only left him miserable and alone and ending up with more issues than he could count. And Bickslow had let all of that be the sole reason for not wanting kids of his own, because his life had not been a life in the slightest.

He didn't want to have his own children because he didn't want them knowing what it was like to have parents that hated them because of something that wasn't even their fault.

He didn't want them knowing what it was like to feel miserable and truly alone.

He wanted them to be happy and have the childhood that he couldn't have had.

But he still wasn't his parents, and he'd never be them. He never wanted to be them, either. And when his child would have someone like Lucy in their life, he could see that they wouldn't end up like _him_. They wouldn't know what he'd known and was still dealing with and would be always be carrying with him, because even when Bickslow knew he'd do his best to make sure of that, he also knew that Lucy would make sure of that, too.

There was still always a chance things would fail, though. Not everything goes to plan and not everything can go the way they want it to. Maybe things would still end up horribly, though. Maybe Bickslow would still find a way to screw things up, because he was really good at doing that.

Maybe no matter how hard they tried – how hard _he_ tried, he'd still end up looking down at his son or daughter one day and see too much of himself in them. And that… That would kill him, and it was still what he was most terrified of.

"Well I still… I still don't want them to end up like me though," he said when he looked back to Lucy from the ceiling. "I really am a mess, and even if… Even if I'm not my parents, I'm still not much better. I mean, I can barely even look after myself. How am I supposed to actually be responsible for someone?"

Lucy shrugged. "You'd just figure it out as you go, I guess," she whispered. "But you still really don't want kids, do you?"

"I… I don't know. Not really. A-And I'm sorry, I am. I should've told you earlier, before I even asked you to marry me. I just… I didn't want to lose you."

She lifted a hand just to lightly rest against the side of his face, and her thumb traced back and forth across the sharp edge of his cheekbone as she whispered, "Hey, I'm still here. You didn't lose me. Hate to break it to you, but you're going to have to try harder to get rid of me."

"I still should have told you," he responded with a small smile.

"Maybe. But I don't blame you for not telling me. It's not like it's a conversation I ever thought we'd be having _this_ early..."

"I was honestly hoping to put it off for at least another six months, but, y'know…"

"Got knocked up and I kinda needed to ask. My bad."

Something close to a laugh fled his mouth then and he couldn't stop himself from pulling her just a little bit closer. How she could be in the mood to joke right then, he had absolutely no idea, but he didn't really care to find out. He'd just gone so long without seeing her, being able to hold her, or just even see her smile, and right then, all of that was all that mattered to him.

And somehow just laying there right then, it almost felt like the last month hadn't happened. Everything felt like it was back to normal, which was strange considering the circumstances, but Bickslow still loved it. He just loved that feeling of knowing that everything would somehow end up being okay from thereon out, because that was how Lucy always made him feel. Right then was most definitely no different, even if he was confused and terrified.

"Well, it's not like it's entirely your fault," he said slowly.

"It kind of is though," Lucy insisted. "I mean, I'm the one who had to make sure it didn't happen, but I screwed that up because I'm an idiot."

"And because you can't keep your hands off me," he added.

She shoved his shoulder but her lips curled up into another smile. "Hey! But… Yeah, that too." Though that Lucy could partly blame on Bickslow. His parents might have been grade A assholes (well, his father specifically. She knew his mother wasn't _all_ bad), but they gave her fiancé some pretty nice genes. "But seriously," she continued, a little more softly. "I really didn't want this to happen. I promise."

The Seith mage sighed and gave her a small smile. "It's okay, really."

"You keep saying that I and don't get it."

He rolled his eyes. "Just stop blaming yourself. You can't pin it all on yourself, 'cause it takes two to make a baby." Lucy only stared at him after that, and as soon as the words had left his mouth, Bickslow only wished he could take them back. It might actually be the most cringe-worthy thing he'd said in his entire life, and he'd said some pretty stupid things.

But that… That took the cake, even if it really was true, because after all, she wouldn't even be pregnant if it weren't for him. Sort of. At least he knew he was capable of producing horrible heirs, not that he'd ever thought about it.

"Did you just…"

Bickslow nodded and the grimace remained on his face. "Yeah… I did," he mumbled. "I just said that." It was only when he heard Lucy suddenly burst into a fit of giggles that he opened his eyes again, and he was only able to stare at the blonde right next to him as she squirmed and laughed up at the ceiling.

She knew she shouldn't be laughing that much, but she just couldn't help herself. True, yes, but hilarious? Also yes. It was more of a case that Lucy just hadn't expected to hear those words come out of his mouth, and even if they'd honestly been so bad, she was so glad he'd said it at all, just because she'd really, _really_ needed to laugh.

"Oh, come on," he complained when she continued to roll around on the bed (and on top of his arm) and laugh. "It wasn't that funny."

"Y-Yes it was," she giggled, then began trying to calm herself down by taking slow and deep breaths.

"Well, fine. But it's true!"

"I know it is."

Bickslow only shook his head and draped his arm over her again to pull her back to his chest and sighed quietly when she made to curl up against him with her head tucked beneath his chin. Just the simple things like that, he'd missed the most, if anything. He'd always just been able to lay there like that with her for hours and be perfectly happy with not doing anything.

He didn't even mind the silence then, either, and neither did Lucy. They both were aware that there were probably countless other things they needed to be talking about right then, but they were both fine with putting the rest of it off for a little while longer. What Bickslow needed the most right then was to know that Lucy wasn't going anywhere, and Lucy was more than fine to just let him accept that, because all _she_ needed right then was Bickslow himself.

Just lying there with him with her eyes closed and his arms around her was all she needed.

But even if Bickslow was fine with the silence with the rain from not that much earlier having come to end end, there was just one more thing he needed to say. Tilting his head just slightly, he gently kissed the top of her head and softly said, "I love you. And I missed you."

"I know," she whispered.

* * *

Bickslow didn't sleep that night after Lucy had decided she wanted to get some rest. Even if he _had_ been tired enough to sleep and his sleeping schedule was actually somewhat normal, he wouldn't have. Just lying there beside Lucy and listening to the steady rhythm of her breathing and the heavy rain that had come back – that was what made him happy right then, even if it was something so simple.

The peace and quiet gave him a chance to think, too, which he hadn't done much of over the last month even though he'd had plenty of time to do so. When she'd been gone, he'd just stared out the windows that he had his back to right then and just waited. What it was he'd been waiting for, he hadn't known, and he still didn't know. Bickslow didn't really want to know, either.

But right then he was thinking.

He was thinking about how happy he was to have her back. He wasn't himself with Lucy there beside him, and he almost hated how reliant on her he was, but without Lucy, he couldn't be who he truly was behind all of his walls. He'd missed that feeling, too – that feeling of being completely at peace with everything and who he was. He'd spent an incredibly long time pretending to be someone else, but it had only taken the time he'd spent with Lucy so far for him to realise that he was much happier when he wasn't having to do that.

He'd still been working on learning to trust everyone else around him when Lucy had disappeared, and when she'd been gone, he hadn't even been able to truly act like himself. Bickslow had always known that Lucy leaving would kill him – just like having a child just to see them grow up and end up too much like him would – and he wouldn't cope with it because that would be the last straw. But it had been so much worse than that. With her gone it had only felt like she'd taken a piece of him with her. Like she'd taken the piece of him that she'd brought out in the first place. And without her, he just couldn't be that person anymore, because it was gone.

But with her back, he was whole again, and he didn't ever want to let go of that feeling. He didn't want to know what it was like to not have her there again.

He was thinking about just how lucky he was to have Lucy in his life, too. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him and Bickslow had told her that too many times to count. He'd probably tell her again when she woke up in the morning, too, because he needed to tell her that he wasn't ever going to forget just how lucky he was.

Bickslow _still_ wasn't even sure how he'd ended up with her in the first place. He didn't deserve her. Not really, anyway; not unless Lucy loving him was the universe's way of apologising for twenty-three years of misery. She more than made up for it if that was the case, though.

She was perfect, if Bickslow could use any one word to describe her. Everything about her made her absolutely perfect – from how drop-dead gorgeous she was, which Bickslow thought was probably one of the best things about her because he would really never get sick of looking at her or telling her just how beautiful she was, to how she was far too kind and forgiving.

Sometimes he thought that she really was too good for him. He was a mess, and he had so much baggage that anyone in their right mind would be wise to throw up their hands in defeat after finding out about all his shit and walk away. But Lucy…

Lucy had stayed. She'd stayed through all of it and she'd been there _with_ him and _for_ him the entire time.

She'd put up with all of his shit when he'd been trying to just be the friend she needed, and then she'd forgiven him and gave him a chance after he fucked it all up. She'd been there and helped him deal with all of insecurities and countless problems he had. She'd been patient with him and had given him all the time in the world to let her in and show that he really did trust her. She'd never pushed him to do something he wasn't quite ready for, and she'd always tried her best to make him feel better about how slow a journey he was on when it came to getting out of his shell completely, because he was doing it all for her.

And even when he'd told her all about his past, she'd stayed and loved him when no one else really had. Even when he'd told her he didn't want to have children, she hadn't left.

She'd stayed, and she'd understood him, and she'd supported him through everything he's dealt with over the last several months. She had been fixing the wounds he'd had for so many years; she'd been healing each scar, each reminder and horrible memory, and had found each broken piece of him that was left and put him back together, piece by tiny little piece.

Helping Lucy had been easy all those months ago. He'd barely had to do anything other than just be there for her and tell her that it was okay to feel a little broken because anything broken could always be repaired. But him…

Bickslow had thought he'd been broken beyond repair until Lucy had shown him otherwise, and he was so grateful for that. Truly. That was mostly why he didn't think he was good enough for Lucy. He didn't deserve her patience or her kindness, and he most definitely did not deserve her love. But he had it, and he'd always had it and he _still_ had it, and he hoped to always have it because more than anything, he wanted to be with her, and if that meant starting a family, then so be it.

He was thinking about that a lot, too – about how they really could be an actual family soon. Bickslow didn't know whether or not Lucy wanted to keep the baby, but he hoped she did. He still didn't really want to have kids, but he wasn't completely against the idea of them really starting a family together.

If she decided she didn't want to keep it, then that would be fine. Maybe they wouldn't ever have kids in the future; maybe Lucy would sacrifice the idea of them having a family just because she needed him more than she did a baby. Or maybe Bickslow would find a way to get over his fear in a few years' time and he'd actually be ready and wanting to have a kid.

But if she decided she did want to keep it, then that would be fine, too. He'd stay by her side, help her any way he could for the remainder of the pregnancy, and he'd be there for their child and be the type of parent that his own weren't. He'd be an actual father to their son or daughter and he'd do his damned best to make sure they never felt unloved or like they were unwanted for a single _second_ of their life.

He wondered right then as Lucy sighed in her sleep and curled herself up against him even more if they would have a boy or a girl if she kept the baby. He could find out, because his magic gave him that ability, but Bickslow didn't know if he _wanted_ to know just yet. Maybe once he saw the colour of it – babies' souls were always white and pure with either a light pink or blue tinge to them, which was something Bickslow had always thought was just a little odd considering the stereotyped colours for girls and boys and he'd wondered if that was what had started the stereotype in the first place – he'd want it even more than he already did. It wasn't like he could tell Lucy what he saw if he did decide to look, because he didn't know if it would sway her decision in any way. That was something he couldn't let happen, because as much as he hoped she wanted to keep the baby, he didn't want to make her do something she wasn't ready for or didn't want.

Bickslow was just a little curious to know, though. What else was he going to do anyway? It was two o'clock in the morning, he was wide awake because he'd screwed up his sleeping schedule and had become a night owl, and Lucy was fast asleep. He wanted to check on Lucy's own soul, anyway, because he liked to do that occasionally just so he could confirm that there wasn't anything he needed to be worrying about that he didn't know of, so he could just look a little lower and find out. She was asleep and her eyes were most definitely closed, so there was no risk to her if he used his magic.

So he did, and the cool glow from his eyes filled the dark room for a moment before he got a hold back on his magic.

First, he looked to the brightly glowing orb in the centre of her chest just next to her heart. It was as bright and warm as it always was, but there was just the faintest and tiniest crack in the middle of it marring it. Bickslow hated seeing that, but he figured it was safe to assume that it was just an older wound that had been reopened from seeing Aquarius. He knew Lucy had never quite gotten over it and they'd both long since accepted that she probably never would because Aquarius had been her first real friend and that was a hard thing to lose, but she'd healed and her soul had healed and she was no longer the broken girl with a shattered soul.

Bickslow could see that faint crack on her soul already begin to stitch itself back together once again anyway, so he knew he didn't have to worry about it much. So he let his eyes wander down her sleeping form and pulled himself away from her just a tiny bit, then tensed when she stirred slightly and tugged on his shirt. He waited several moments before looking back down just to make sure she wasn't waking up, then let out a barely audible sigh when he was sure Lucy was still out like a light.

He already knew that there would be something there so he wasn't surprised to see the tiny and dimly glowing ball just beneath where her navel was, but his breath hitched slightly because it was the first time he'd ever actually seen a baby's soul – intentionally, anyway. Bickslow had read about it when he'd been learning about his magic when he'd been younger because he'd been learning about the different types of souls and what each colour usually meant. But actually _seeing_ it…

It was beautiful – magical, even – but maybe that was just because it was his child. Bickslow didn't really care what the case was though, to be honest. He was too busy staring at the faint white, almost silver, tiny little ball of light with the barest of hints of light pink in the very centre of what was his daughter's soul. He wasn't worried about how dim it was, because it was growing and developing just like _she_ was. That was the amazing thing about souls: they grew with the person and they could change and develop over time.

But what Bickslow could see right then, was a perfect little soul and it was exactly the way it should be, and seeing it only made Bickslow happier than he thought it could have. The thought of them _maybe_ having a little girl, one that he hoped would end up a whole lot more like Lucy, completely warmed his heart, and hell, even his soul, and when Bickslow gently pulled the blonde even closer to him than she already was and closed his eyes, he did so with a stupid grin he was glad he wasn't going to have to explain.

* * *

Bickslow managed to sneak away from the blonde one last time just after the sun began to rise behind the dark storm clouds looming over the ocean. He would've stayed if it weren't for the fact that he was on the verge of falling asleep and was also incredibly hungry, having only snacked throughout the night when he'd been able to bring himself to pull away from Lucy for a little while. He didn't want to fall asleep though, because he wanted to be up with Lucy during the day so they could talk some more, so coffee was a must.

Caspian was coming down the stairs from his bedroom in the loft as Bickslow made his way out to the kitchen. "Morning," the older man yawned.

"Morning," Bickslow replied. "You're up early today. I thought you didn't need to open the store until ten on a Saturday?"

"Didn't sleep that well," Caspian admitted as he'd already begun pulling out ingredients and bowls and pans for breakfast. "The rain kept me up most of the night." He'd never been all that good with storms or even rain, so it was why he'd moved to Akane Beach in the first place. It was _almost_ permanently summer there, even if the actual summer was known for having a few rainy days.

"Right."

"Besides," his uncle added, "I've got an order to finish up for one of my clients so I figured I'd go in a little earlier to get those finished for him."

Bickslow glanced over his shoulder as he filled up two mugs with the coffee – one for himself, and one for Caspian. "Still doing those rings?" he inquired, and his uncle nodded. Bickslow could remember him mentioning something about some person ordering a set of eight sterling silver rings, each with a different gemstone.

"Yup," Caspian sighed. "But speaking of rings…"

Bickslow glanced suspiciously over his shoulder again as he grabbed the carton of milk and poured some into his coffee before shutting the fridge. "What _about_ rings?"

"Well, I heard giggling last night, and that seems like a good thing to me so I'm assuming you two sorted things out?"

"I… I guess. It was more of a misunderstanding than anything."

"So… You think you two will still get married?" Caspian asked.

 _Ah,_ _ **rings**_ _. Right._ Bickslow could now see that his uncle meant wedding rings. Though, the truth was that Bickslow didn't know whether or not they'd need them. They hadn't really gotten to that part of the conversation before Lucy had gone to bed. Shrugging, Bickslow sat down at at the counter and traced the rim of the mug with his finger. "I don't know, to be honest," he mumbled.

"Well, you are back to together, yes?"

Bickslow shrugged again. "I assume so. It's not like we ever really broke up to begin with, and to Lucy she wasn't even gone a single day anyway."

Caspian arched an eyebrow and looked up from the bowl he was whisking eggs in. "How is that even possible? You've been here for two weeks."

"She was in the Celestial Spirit realm. Time is all weird there."

"Right…" Bickslow only slowly sipped at his coffee after offering some kind of grunt as a response, and it was only once Caspian had finished plating their breakfast and Bickslow was pushing around the scrambled eggs on the plate with a fork that Caspian broke the silence and asked, "And what about the baby?"

"What about her?"

"Her?" Caspian echoed.

Bickslow shrugged and took a bite of the food. "Saw its soul. Baby's a _her_ ," he muttered.

"So does that mean Lucy wants to keep her if she let you look?"

"She doesn't know I did, and she also doesn't know that I can even do that. I'm not going to tell her yet, either," Bickslow said. "And as far as whether or not Lucy wants to keep her, I have no idea, and neither does she. She said she could get an abortion because of me, but…"

Caspian frowned as he watched his nephew continue to push the food around on his plate. He'd never had his own children, but he knew that deciding whether or not to have a baby – especially one from an unplanned pregnancy – was no easy decision. Caspian admittedly didn't know all that much about the situation, because Bickslow had only told him the bare minimum when he'd arrived and he'd gotten the hint that he shouldn't press the matter, but now Bickslow wasn't really shying away from answering any of Caspian's questions and he was incredibly curious to know more.

Bickslow's answers, however… They were only proving to confuse Caspian more.

He didn't understand.

He knew Bickslow didn't want kids – the why was the why, and Caspian didn't know the answer to that mystery – but he almost sounded disappointed and just a little frustrated. Of course, Caspian couldn't help but be a little amazed that Lucy would do something like terminate her pregnancy just because she knew how Bickslow felt about having children, but if she was willing to do something like that, then shouldn't Bickslow be maybe a little… _relieved?_

"Is that not what you want her to do?" he inquired.

"No."

Caspian raised an eyebrow at his nephew. "So you want to have children?"

"No," Bickslow answered again before letting out a frustrated sigh and muttering, "But only because I don't want them – _her_ – to be a fuck-up like I am. It's just easier to not have kids so then there's no risk of them turning out like me, y'know?"

"Bickslow…"

The Seith mage stood up from the table abruptly with another sigh. "Yeah, yeah. I know," he groaned. He knew Caspian would just tell him not to think like that, because it was what he did every time he called himself a fuck-up – which was exactly what he was so he didn't know why anyone tried to tell him otherwise – but he didn't exactly want to hear it right then. He dropped his plate and empty coffee cup in the sink not so gently and ran a hand through his hair while turning for the hall again. "I'm just gonna go back to bed and wait for Lucy to get up."

"Oh… Okay. Do you want me to fix anything for breakfast for her?" Caspian asked.

"No. I'll get something for her later. I doubt she'll want to eat anything any time soon, anyway," Bickslow mumbled. It was really a miracle to get her to eat anything, but he could remember her mentioning something about a type of medication her doctor had prescribed her to combat the worst of her nausea before she'd gone to bed and started complaining about it waring off from when she'd taken her tablet in the morning. He was still just trying to wrap his head around how the morning she'd been talking about was a month in the past for him, yet right then, it was just the previous day for Lucy.

Luckily though, he didn't have to wait long for Lucy to wake up. She'd always been a bit of an early riser, not that he minded all that much even if she was up a little earlier than he was most of the time. By the time he was getting back down to his room, Lucy was just beginning to wake up, and he couldn't stop himself from smiling as he watched her stretch out beneath the thin sheet and make the cute little noises she made whenever she woke up.

"Morning," he murmured, softly kissing her forehead before gently stepping over her on the bed to sit down on the side against the tall and cold windows.

"Morning," Lucy whispered with a smile on her face and her arms still stretched over her head and her hands flat against the headboard. "I think I'm going to puke."

Bickslow chuckled and he rolled his eyes. How she was capable of smiling right then, he had no idea. He liked it though. "Bathroom's the next door in the hall," he said, pointing to his bedroom door.

She nodded and quickly rolled out of bed to carry herself out of Bickslow's room and to the bathroom next door. There really wasn't anything to throw up, but her body disagreed, and she still didn't know how she felt about knowing the cause of it. Regardless, she needed to get the bile taste out of her mouth. "Do you have any spare toothbrushes here?" she called out.

"Try under the sink."

Lucy came back to the bedroom just a few moments later with yet another smile and some thankfully (to her, anyway) minty fresh breath. Walking back over to the bed after gently closing door, she knelt down on the edge of bed then curled back up on her side next to her Seith mage. "Did you put my clothes in the wash?" she asked as Bickslow moved to let her rest her head on his leg. It wasn't like she minded wearing just one of his shirts, whether to sleep in or to wear around the house on a lazy day, but when she was at Bickslow's uncle's house, the last thing she wanted to be doing was getting caught walking around in a shirt that just covered her behind. That would just be embarrassing.

"Not yet. I'll do it later."

"But… I don't exactly have anything else to wear," she said while turning and looking up to him. "I didn't even bring my keys so I can't get Virgo to bring me some clothes from the spirit world." With that thought in her mind, she looked directly up to the ceiling and raised her hands demonstratively, then called out, "Loke? Virgo? I know you all can hear me so don't ignore me."

"Cosplayer, what are you doing?" he chuckled.

She sighed and looked back to him. "Nothing, apparently. I was hoping I'd be able to coax them out, but they're apparently too happy not forcing their gates open for once." Honestly, some clothes would be nice right about then. But no, her spirits were ignoring her.

"Don't worry 'bout it," Bickslow said, reaching forward just to pull the sheet back up so it was over her and partially over his legs. "Cas will be leaving soon so you don't need to worry about him, if that was what you were concerned about." The small shrug she gave only confirmed that, and he added, "You'll be fine in just this for a little while."

"Fine. If you say so," she huffed. It was as his lips tugged up into a small smirk that Lucy noticed the dark rings under his eyes. She'd actually noticed them the night before, but it had been getting late and if _she_ had spent the last month worrying about where Bickslow could have disappeared to and whether or not he was even alive, then she would have been a little tired all the time, too. But they were darker now, and he'd been speaking a little slower and a little softer than what was the usual for him. "You look tired," she whispered after several moments.

"That's because I am."

She frowned up at him. "Did you get any sleep?"

"No," he admitted after a pause, then before Lucy could tell him off for it (because he knew she would), he promptly added, "But only because I ended up starting to sleep during the day instead after I came here, so I'm usually going to bed around this time."

"Bickslow, you need to get some rest."

He shook his head. "I don't want to. If I sleep, it'll just end up wasting the day and I won't get to spend it with you." They had plenty of things to talk about for starters, and Bickslow wanted to get to those things. He couldn't do that if he was sleeping, could he? He just wanted to spend as much time as he could with Lucy.

Lucy had other plans though, of course, and she only gave him an almost devious smile before quickly getting up to kneel in the middle of the bed to grab the Seith mage's crossed ankles and roughly yanked him down so he was propped up on his elbows instead of sitting up. He was easy to move when he wasn't expecting something like that, and the yelp he gave when he'd been pulled down only proved that, but he was still heavy, and she didn't exactly want to admit that it had been a little harder to do than she'd made it seem. Moving up so she was hovering over him and supporting herself with her hands and knees on either side of him, she only ducked down to kiss his cheek before whispering, "Get some rest. We have plenty of days to spend together, so I don't think a few hours or a day is going to make a difference."

"But… But I'm really not that tired."

"I know that you are."

"Okay, maybe just a little," he mumbled as Lucy was already making herself comfortable beside him and pulling the sheet and blanket up over the both of them. "I can survive not—"

"Come on, just for a few hours," Lucy said. She wouldn't mind getting an extra few hours of sleep herself, so she figured if Bickslow understood that he wouldn't be opposed to getting some sleep, too. So she turned once the blankets were covering them so her back was against his chest, and Bickslow's arm hesitantly came around her after a moment to pull her closer to him.

"Just for a few hours then."

Except Lucy couldn't bring herself to fall asleep that time. She was too busy staring out the windows and watching the rain fall, because there were just far too many thoughts buzzing around her head for her to get any more sleep.

* * *

Bickslow didn't wake up again until noon, and that gave Lucy plenty of time to think about what she was going to do about their newfound situation. She just wanted to be happy and not feel like she'd made the wrong decision, and her problem was that she didn't know what the right choice was just yet.

She still didn't quite understand how Bickslow could not want kids, yet also not want her to get an abortion. She wouldn't have hesitated doing so if it was what Bickslow wanted, and she didn't give a damn that anyone probably would have called her crazy for choosing her relationship over a chance at an actual family, because she really just needed Bickslow more than she did a baby.

Yet she wasn't having to choose Bickslow over their could-be child, because he wanted her to keep the baby, and even though that should have made her decision easier, it didn't.

Lucy wanted to have a baby. She wanted to have children and raise a little family that was her own. She just didn't know if then was the right time to do so. Bickslow wasn't really going to be a problem, because she could deal with his fear of their child getting brought up in the same horrible way that he had – not that you could call it an upbringing, because it really wasn't. Lucy would never in a million years let that happen, and maybe all she'd have to do was prove that to Bickslow to make him see that he really didn't have anything to worry about. Well, not really, anyway. She could let him be terrified of being a parent, because she'd be in the same boat that she was pretty confident would sink, but she knew that was just a natural response to that kind of thing. Anyone who wasn't just a little scared of being a new parent was probably out of their goddamn mind – at least that's what Lucy thought, anyway.

She wasn't worried about Bickslow leaving her, either. She had been, but he'd put an end to her worrying on that front the night before. He would stay and he would raise their child with her if she decided that that was what she wanted to do. And sure, it made her feel better knowing that Bickslow would still be by her side no matter what her choice came down to, but it didn't make deciding any easier. Not by a long shot.

Lucy knew it was coming down to what _she_ wanted to do, though. Bickslow wasn't going to tell her exactly what to do, which she kind of liked, even though she almost wished he would just to make her life a little bit easier.

On one hand, as she stared out the dreary beach just outside the cold windows and as Bickslow stirred and began waking up behind her, Lucy was realising that she wanted to keep the baby. Or at least, that was what she was leaning towards, and heavily at that. She really hadn't been with Bickslow all that long, but she cared about him and loved him more than she'd even thought possible, and she knew he felt the same way about her, but even if they hadn't been together for that long, she'd known that having a family would be what she wanted eventually.

And then she hadn't wanted it, because Bickslow had told her he didn't want to have kids.

And then he'd told her why, and she wasn't sure whether it was what she wanted.

But she was realising that it was. She wanted to be a mother, and she wanted to have a baby and raise their child in Fairy Tail and give them the best, craziest, and most loving family anyone could wish for. The question was just whether or not she was ready to do that, and she really didn't think she was.

So she just didn't know what to do.

"It's still raining?" Bickslow mumbled as he lifted his head to peek over her shoulder once he was somewhat awake.

"Yeah," Lucy replied. "It hasn't stopped, either. Does it always rain this much in summer?"

"Mm-hmm. It can rain for days at a time sometimes, but it should clear up and go back to being disgustingly hot in a couple days. Speaking of rain and water though…"

"Hm?"

He waited until Lucy had rolled onto her back before he continued, "You said last night that Aquarius wanted to talk to you for another reason. What was it?" Talking about what Aquarius wanted seemed to be a good place to start, rather than just diving straight into the whole baby thing.

"Oh… Um." Lucy had almost forgotten about what Aquarius had told her before she'd left. How that had happened she had no idea, because it could very well be a problem if she chose to keep the baby. "Well, uh…" She looked at her hands she was suddenly wringing together over her chest, then quietly said, "Apparently when a spirit's key is broken, they'll reforge in Earthland after a year, so Aquarius' key will appear somewhere in… In a few weeks now, I guess."

"Oh. That's great news, Lucy."

"I guess," she mumbled.

 _Or not…_ Bickslow thought she'd be happy about that, because she'd be able to get Aquarius back and her spirit family would be whole again, but she didn't seem to be all that excited about it. "You don't seem too happy about that," he whispered. "What's wrong?"

"I just… I don't want to give her up completely, and if someone else finds her key before I do, because there's no telling where it will appear."

"Then we'll go and find it once it's time and we'll make sure you get her back."

"But… I won't be able to do that if I keep the baby," she mumbled. "I don't exactly want to be travelling all over the world when I'm pregnant. Something tells me that wouldn't be the wisest idea."

That was something Bickslow had to admit he saw the logic in. Now that she'd mentioned it, he didn't exactly want her travelling the world when she was carrying his child, even if he'd be with her and helping her search for Aquarius' key. "Yeah, maybe not," he agreed. "But, you know, if you do decide to keep the baby, we could always go later, like as a family when she's a little older or something. Or… Or _you_ could go and look for Aquarius' key, and I could stay back and look after her." Of course, it wouldn't be for very long, but he'd do that.

The corner of her mouth pulled up into a small smile. She could question why Bickslow had just used 'her', but decided against it. _He probably just said it so it's not just 'the baby' or 'it'._ "So you mean _you_ , who doesn't want to have children, would gladly stay home with an infant, all by yourself, while I go look for a tiny little key that could be in any country or any continent?"

Bickslow nodded. "'Course," he grinned. "Babies are no problem. It's the baby growing up and turning into a kid that I have the problem with, but babies are too little for me to screw up their life anyway so I'd be fine on my own for a little while."

If they did decide to do that (assuming she decided she wanted to keep the baby in the first place), Lucy already knew she wouldn't be able to stay away from home for very long, if at all. That would make travelling all over the place searching for a tiny piece of metal just a little difficult, especially if Aquarius' key ended up in a different country or even continent. But even if she could do that, it would be at least a year before she'd be able to. A lot could happen in a year, and in that time, someone else could come across her key before Lucy did, and she would lose Aquarius for good.

She didn't really want to be having to choose between having an actual family or her spirit, because Aquarius had been and always would be a part of her family, too.

So maybe it really did just solely come down to whether or not she was ready to have a baby – or more accurately, whether she'd be ready to be a mother when she really had to be. If only she could see what the answer to that question was, though, because it would make her life so much easier and she wouldn't be wishing she could just pass on what was probably the toughest decision of her life to someone else.

"I just don't know what to do," she eventually whispered.

"I know," Bickslow said. He pulled his hand away from where he was propping his head up with his elbow on the bed, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders to hold her tightly to him, and gently kissed the tip of her nose – something he knew always made her smile, no matter how sad she was. "But whatever you want to do and decide to do, I'll be with you either way, one-hundred percent."

The blonde sighed and hid her face against his chest. "I kinda want to have a baby," she admitted.

"Then have one," he said with a smile that he was kind of glad Lucy couldn't see.

"But I kinda want to go and find Aquarius' key once it's reforged."

"Then go do it."

"You're not helping," she grumbled as the Seith mage chuckled. It was a warm sound, and she felt it where she lay her head against his chest, and she couldn't stop from trying to get herself just a tiny bit closer to him.

"You know I'm not going to tell you what to do."

"I know," Lucy sighed. "But… I'm too young to have a baby, too."

"So what? It's not like you're irresponsible. Age doesn't matter," Bickslow said.

"Babies are expensive."

"That's why you get them on sale."

She sat up just to slap his shoulder. "Hey! Not funny, Bicks."

"No? I thought it was," he chuckled again, and Lucy shook her head and gave him a stern look. Okay, so maybe cracking jokes about buying babies wasn't the smartest idea. At least he knew not to do it again, though. "But seriously, that's not really a problem and you know it. Laxus pretty much exclusively takes us on S-Class missions these days anyway, and there's plenty in my savings so we're fine," he said.

"…Fine, I suppose," she mumbled, returning to her position laying down in front of him. "But… We won't be able to take as many jobs," she added to her list of cons to consider. "Well, _I_ won't be able to, because I'll probably be spending the next few months puking because of this stupid… I don't even remember what it's called right now, and I'm pretty sure Erza and everyone else will ban me from taking any jobs anyway because they're mostly dangerous. And then once the baby comes, you won't be able to take any for a little while _at least,_ but you still won't be able to take as many as what you used to. Or at least, I hope you wouldn't, because I'm probably going to end up really disliking you if you get to keep going off and take jobs all the time while I get stuck at home with a baby and don't take a single job again."

"I know," he smiled.

"And… Um… And I'm going to get fat. Like, really fat."

"Yeah, and? Totally convinced you'd still be sexy as hell, so whatever."

"The wedding would have to get put off, too," she continued. "I mean, not that I had any intentions of it being any time soon, but like, for a year, minimum. Because I'd want to look good in my dress, you know?"

Bickslow rolled his eyes and his smile grew just that little bit wider. At least he knew that she still wanted to marry him – that was great, honestly – but he wasn't really concerned about that right then. He was having too much fun listening to her go on and on about everything. Bickslow had never thought frustrated and worried would be cute on someone until that very moment, too. "Lucy," he said, and he fought so hard to keep a somewhat straight and serious face.

"Uh-huh?"

"Do you want to have a baby or not?" he asked. Lucy could probably go on for hours, trying to convince herself or maybe even him not to have a baby and why it probably wasn't the smartest idea in the world, and he didn't want Lucy to do that. She'd all but come to a decision, and he could see that. "Because whatever you want is fine. Just tell me what you want to do. Please."

Lucy sat up suddenly and crossed her legs under her, and quickly tucked her un-brushed hair behind her ears. She knew she was just making excuses. Most of what she'd said was just common sense, really, so she knew Bickslow already knew all of it.

She didn't want to have an abortion. She'd come to that conclusion. She didn't want one, but she'd do it if Bickslow really wanted her to. He didn't though, so she didn't need to worry about that. But she still wasn't ready to have a baby. She'd only just turned twenty-one, for heaven's sake. That was way too young to be starting a family, even though plenty of people started even younger.

Strangely enough, though, that didn't seem to bother her as much. Age was really just a number, they were both responsible (well, mostly, in Bickslow's case) adults, and they could afford to raise a child, which was incredibly important. It was just a matter of whether or not she'd be ready to step up when she needed to, and… Well, Lucy was sure she could. She believed in herself, and she was pretty sure Bickslow believed in her too.

"I…" She paused just to worry her bottom lip between her teeth because she knew Bickslow was watching her from where he now sat in front of her, mirroring her posture. It was only after several moments where she really wondered if it was the right thing to do that she took a shaky breath and finally said, "I want to. I want to… To keep the baby."

"Alright."

Lucy lifted her head just to see Bickslow smiling at her. "Is that okay? I mean… Will you be okay?" she asked.

Bickslow nodded. "Promise me one thing though?" he asked in returned. He didn't need to ask whether or not Lucy was sure it was what she wanted to do, because he knew her – he knew that she wouldn't have said so unless she was _two_ -hundred percent sure of herself.

"Anything."

He sat forward slightly just to take her face in his hands and rest his forehead on hers, then quietly asked, "Promise me she won't end up like me?"

"I promise," she whispered.

"Then I'll be okay."

And oh, was Lucy relieved to hear that. She wanted to be happy, and just knowing that Bickslow would be okay – or at least he would find a way to be okay with it all – allowed her to be happy. She was terrified, sure, because she was going to be a mother and she didn't really know how to be, but she was sure she'd figure it out when she had to. But she was happy, too. Suddenly she didn't seem to care about the fact that she was probably way too young to have a baby, and that she had most definitely not been in a relationship long enough to even considering having one, or that she was going to get fat and she wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her team anymore. None of that seemed to matter anymore.

But there was one thing that mattered, as she realised once Bickslow had stopped telling her that he loved her over and over again between kisses (not that she minded that, though). Pulling away slightly after another light kiss to her cheek from Bickslow, she said with a small smile, "You said 'she' again."

"I did?"

"Mm-hmm."

Bickslow hadn't even been aware he'd said it, and certainly not _again_ for that matter, either. He could just tell Lucy it was a slip and 'she' was a better option than 'it', but there was no way he'd be able to keep that up for long. He couldn't keep secrets from Lucy because he'd learned he was much happier just telling her everything, whether it was something he'd never told anyone or it was an errant thought that was so far left-field that sometimes he worried about how messed up his brain was (not that Lucy minded that so much, either).

Besides, they were having a baby, which he was finding himself strangely just a little excited for all of a sudden, and he could tell her that that baby was actually girl. She was bound to find out at some point anyway, so what was the harm in telling her? "Well, uh… That's because you're having a girl, so… _She_ ," he said.

"A girl would be nice, but you can't know that for sure yet," she sighed.

"I can, actually." He pointed to his eyes and gave her a wide grin, and watched as she clicked understood what he meant.

"You… You mean you can tell?" she whispered. "From its… soul?"

"Yup. It might just be the only perk of my magic." And right then, Bickslow couldn't help but feel a little proud. It was probably the first time in his life he was actually proud of being a Seith mage, too, because he knew that their baby was going to be a girl way before they should've found at at all.

"So we're going to have a little girl?"

He nodded. "Yup," he said again with a grin he hadn't been able to wipe off his face. Well… Until he noticed she was crying, that is. "Wait… Oh fuck, why are you crying? Is that a bad thing? Are you mad I told you? Because I'm sorry, I just… I wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret if I tried," he tried to explain quickly.

Lucy shook her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingers. "N-No, no, it's okay. I'm h-happy," she said with a watery laugh. She was happy, too. She was having a girl, and sure, she still would've been happy if it was a boy, but they were going to have a little girl in a few more months (or several, more accurately, not that she was really sure how far along she was yet), and she was more than okay with that.

As far as the crying went… Well, she was going to put that down to her being happy, and the hormones. She really was going to be using that as an excuse for everything over the next few months, and she couldn't help but be a little excited to see what she could get away with.

* * *

 _ **So yeah, this ended up being longer than expected, so there'll be another chapter after this, and then the epilogue after that. It works better that way so hopefully you'll like what's to come, because I'm pretty excited for it. (Also, yes, the teenagers are still coming back, for those that did like them. Hehehe...)  
**_

 _ **Please remember to review if you liked it!**_

 _ **Until next time.**_

 _ **\- April**_


	19. (VII) Time

_A/Ns at the end, as usual..._

* * *

 _ **CHAPTER 17: SPACE**_  
 _ **TIME**_

* * *

As it turns out, her doctor wasn't very pleased with her for disappearing for a month. Or, really, five weeks by the time they'd gone back to Magnolia together (it had taken a little bit for Bickslow to pack up his stuff again, and neither had just been ready to head back home straight away anyway). Of course, it had been no surprise that the blood test results had come back when she'd been gone and confirmed that she really was pregnant, and she hadn't been terribly shocked to find out she was sitting just a little under what was considered healthy. Well, it hadn't shocked Bickslow, anyway, because he could've told anyone that his lovely blonde was not in the best shape because of her 'mystery' illness.

Still though, her doctor had only lectured her on the importance of prenatal vitamins and a balanced and healthy diet and lifestyle for a good two hours – Bickslow had started counting the seconds, he'd been that bored – since she should have started taking care of herself more, as well as her baby, a good few weeks earlier. It wasn't her fault she hadn't, though. Well, it kind of was, because she was an idiot (Bickslow claimed otherwise), but still. The point was that at ten weeks, give or take a few days by the time she'd gone in to see her doctor again, get a scan, and get lectured for being irresponsible (which, really, had only had her walking out in tears because she hadn't meant to be irresponsible), she was more than a little behind on all of her prenatal vitamins and she really needed to start taking them and taking care of herself.

Other than that, though, their daughter, whom Lucy was otherwise convinced had actually been conceived at some point during their holiday at Akane Beach two months earlier, because it made sense, was healthy and happy. It was just Lucy that wasn't.

And of course, Bickslow was really making sure to look after her. He had only two conditions, too.

One, was that when he told Lucy to eat, she had to eat.

And two, was that when he was freaking the hell out and he was threatening to take her to the hospital for his own sanity, she couldn't argue with him and she had to let him take her to see a doctor. For her sake and for their daughter's sake he would do that.

They'd decided to go to the guild just a few days after getting back, and as soon as Lucy had walked in, her team tackled her to the ground in a group hug, leaving Bickslow in the doorway and just looking down at the pile of mages on the floor with a shocked expression. If Lucy hadn't just disappeared again for another week, she probably would have been screaming at her team and telling them to get off her, but because she'd first left without a word for a month, then taken off without so much as an explanation for another week, she decided to just let her team hug her for a little while.

Bickslow had ventured off to go see his team by the time Lucy had been allowed off the ground – it wasn't like _he_ needed to be there with her. Plus, he just really wanted to see his team, because they were his best friends and he'd kind of missed them. So while Bickslow headed in one direction, Lucy just smiled and let her team bombard her with questions and headed in the opposite direction. By the time she'd sat down, more than a few people had moseyed on over to where she was with her team. They'd all suspected an explanation of some sort was coming, and Lucy couldn't blame them for being curious because she would be too if it wasn't her having to do the explaining, though she couldn't help but wonder why Mira looked so suspiciously excited from where she lurked behind her younger sister.

"So, uh…" She rubbed the back of her neck – a habit she really had picked up from Natsu over the years – as everyone watched her like a hawk. The guild had become almost painfully silent by then, but before Lucy could even explain her absence, that silence was broken by a loud shriek from Evergreen on the opposite side of the hall as she launched herself at the Seith mage.

Bickslow was only able to shoot Lucy an apologetic look – despite his visor –

as the brunette continued to hug him and cry and squeal about how she was going to be an aunt. Freed was at least being a decent human and was just keeping quiet and smiling, and Laxus was just being Laxus and pretending to hate everyone and everything in the guild, but he was just a little relieved that his moronic friends had figured out about the baby. It was about time, really.

But it wasn't something Bickslow would've been able to keep a secret if he tried, because he was kind of excited. Why, he had absolutely no idea because he really doubted that them having a baby was even close to being the best idea and right thing for them to do – he was really just thinking 'fuck it' at that point and going with it, and he was well aware _that_ wasn't the best thing to be doing – but he was excited.

He was also incredibly glad that Evergreen's blubbering was incomprehensible to anyone but the rest of their team. He didn't think Lucy would appreciate the entire guild finding out before she could tell them herself, because he knew that she wanted to do that. They'd talked about how she would tell them and when she'd do it, and they'd considered waiting just a few more weeks since there was still the possibility something could go wrong – which was something Lucy was incredibly worried about considering the lecture she'd received from her doctor – but they'd just decided that waiting wasn't an option. Bickslow couldn't keep it a secret, and he'd had to try really hard not to blurt it out the few times he'd gone to the guild before running off to his uncle's house, and Lucy certainly couldn't, either, because where Bickslow was excited yet still not knowing whether it was the right thing, Lucy was _just_ excited. She knew that doubting herself was not something she could do in that situation, so she was trying her best to stay positive. It was what she'd chosen to do, after all.

So, of course, with Lucy quickly realising that a few more people in the guild had found out, courtesy of Bickslow, she only turned back to her own group of people surrounding her and sighed quietly. "So uh," she began again. "I guess I should probably start with saying that I, or Bickslow and I, I should say, have decided to have a baby."

"Huh? So you really were knocked up," Gray mumbled to himself.

"Why so early?" Erza asked over Mira's squealing.

Juvia only looked like she was a fish out of water as she looked between Lucy and Bickslow; Happy just continued eating the raw fish and seemed unaware of what Lucy had just said in the first place; Lisanna just stared though she had the same look of sheer excitement on her face that her older sister did; Wendy just smiled politely while trying to keep herself from falling asleep; Levy and Gajeel seemed bored from where they sat at the next table, and Cana just seemed like she didn't care all that much. But none of that really bothered Lucy, and the silence in the rest of the guild she ignored.

It was Natsu's reaction – or lack thereof – that Lucy was the most interested in. He wasn't that dense, and he most definitely was not deaf (or at least most of the time), but he just didn't seem to care much. Where everyone else around her and in the guild was at least a little shocked, because yeah, deciding to have a family that early in a relationship was crazy, Natsu wasn't even close to looking like he was surprised by it.

"Natsu?" Lucy whispered, ignoring everyone else's comments around her. "You haven't said anything."

Natsu shrugged and finally flashed his infectious grin. "Nothing to say," he answered. "I already knew you were having a baby."

Lucy wasn't the only one who said _'huh'_ then, and Bickslow only tried to sink into his chair as Evergreen yelled at him for apparently not telling her sooner. It wasn't his fault Dragon Slayers had better hearing than he did and figured it out before he did, and it was most definitely not his fault Mira just apparently had a keen eye for that kind of thing (he'd had no idea Mira had known Lucy was pregnant, too, until Laxus had told him about five minutes earlier).

"You… You did?" Lucy mumbled.

"Yup!" And just like that, the quiet Dragon Slayer had been replaced by his usual child-like self. But that didn't help Lucy's confusion any, and it mostly definitely didn't make her feel better when he added, "Gajeel knew, too."

"Oi! Don't bring me into this, Salamander!" Gajeel shot back, and Levy only sighed and dropped her head to the pile of books in front of her. He only stood up to point to the Lightning Slayer on the other side of the room to out him, too. "I'm not the only one who knew! Sparkplug did, too!"

Laxus cracked an eye open and looked to the group surrounding the blonde. "What? Is this some kind of tattle game now?" he muttered. "In that case, the demon knew, too."

All eyes went to Mira and she only shrugged. "It was just a little obvious."

Lucy looked around the guild and to each of the people that had apparently already known she was pregnant before she did. Bickslow was looking surprisingly guilty, so she only assumed that he knew that more people than just Levy had figured it out before they had. She could deal with Bickslow later though, because right then all Lucy was wanting to do was find out just how that many people had found out and why none of them had told her.

"So you all knew that I was pregnant?" she asked quietly.

They each said some form of yes, though there were a few mumbled noes from various guild members.

"How long?" Lucy continued.

Natsu shrugged. "Since that wedding at Sabertooth."

"But… But that was nearly a month ago. Or nearly two now, I suppose," she mumbled. That was a long time for them to know and keep it to themselves, because they'd had a full two weeks to tell her before she'd found herself, and maybe if she'd known a little earlier, the entire situation with her going to the spirit world and Bickslow being left alone for so long could have been avoided. Maybe her doctor wouldn't have wanted her head if she'd known a little earlier, too. She glanced to Mira, then to Gajeel, then to Laxus, then asked, "And how long have the rest of you known?"

"Since then," Gajeel answered. "Kinda guessed it like a week before then or some shit when Bicks complained about you eating weird as shit food."

"I did not," the Seith mage muttered. Okay, so he might have once or twice, because when she had been able to get out of bed and eat food in the weeks where they'd had no idea what was wrong with her, he'd only found her sitting on the bench in the kitchen eating pickles straight from the jar (which was so strange because she really did loathe them) and ice-cream, too. But it hadn't been complaining as much as it had just been making a comment.

"Plus you got really sick after coming back from a vacation so…" Mira drawled, and once again Bickslow was only left trying to make himself invisible, and Lucy was wanting to join him in that. It was bad enough that their friends knew just a little bit too much about their sex life ( _Bickslow_ was _still_ scarred from the time her team had walked in on them during their month off from jobs, but it had at least made them just a little more conscious of what was considered socially acceptable when it came to visiting, like knocking and not barging in), but did Mira really need to point out that little detail? There really were some things the entire guild didn't need to know. "You were either dying or pregnant, but it made more sense for it to be the latter," the eldest Strauss added. "Does this mean I can start planning your baby shower now?"

"W-What? No!" Lucy shrieked. No, it was way too early to be planning a baby shower, thank you very much. And at the very least, she didn't even want to be thinking about it right then. She was still more concerned about how some of her closest friends had known and not told her. "So… So did anyone else know?"

Gray suddenly looked surprisingly guilty as he began whistling suspiciously, and Wendy slowly raised her hand.

"G-Gray? You knew, too?"

"Well, only because everyone was being massive pervs at the wedding and made it obvious."

"Like you can talk, Ice Stripper," Natsu muttered. "You're the biggest pervert of us all."

Lucy only groaned into her hands as the two launched themselves into another one of their arguments about who was the biggest perv. It didn't help that Gray had lost his shirt – Juvia didn't seem to mind – but Lucy just didn't care who had the most perverted mind of the two. She only turned to Wendy instead and silently asked her to explain how _she_ knew.

"I just started putting all of your symptoms together and what everyone else had let slip," Wendy answered. If anything, Lucy had to admit that Wendy figuring it out wasn't all that surprising. She was the smartest of all the Dragons put together, and it really would have been obvious to the healer in her, but how everyone else had been smart enough to guess, Lucy still had no idea.

But she didn't really care to find out _how_ they'd all known. What mattered was that _six_ people had known long before she had (or at the very least suspected), and none of them had even bothered to tell her she was pregnant or say something like, _'hey, so you should probably stop being stupid and maybe start considering the fact that you might've accidentally gotten yourself knocked up.'_ Why couldn't they have done that? And even then…

 _Even then_ , they couldn't have even acted just a little surprised when she'd told them! Maybe if they'd been able to find it in themselves to act like they hadn't already known and just pretend to be happy for her (because really, it wasn't like they could have known she'd keep the baby, anyway), or if anything, Lucy was realising she probably would have happier if they'd all had a go at her for it, too. But no. They hadn't even been able to do that.

If anything, only Mira and Evergreen seemed to be excited, and that really hurt Lucy because she wanted her friends to be as happy as she was, but they just didn't seem to be it. And maybe she was just other-thinking because she'd expected a stronger reaction – it was Fairy Tail after all, and no one had started screaming yet and no tables had been broken – but she was only doubting herself now, because maybe if they weren't happy, they weren't going to support her? Sure, she'd survive with just Bickslow being in her corner, but she'd feel so much better about what she was choosing to do if she had her friends and her family with her, too, because even if she wanted to be having that baby, her little girl, she was still scared.

And in a matter of seconds, Lucy was turning to a bawling mess in the middle off the guild. Bickslow was only able to watch in horror as all hell actually seemed to break loose. Natsu and Gray were screaming at each other for apparently making Lucy cry; Happy tried cheering her up by offering her some of his fish; Wendy just looked completely lost as Carla yelled at her to do something; Gajeel seemed to be trying to sneak out with Lily in tow; Levy was quickly getting up to try and console her friend while Erza was only seeming to make Lucy cry even more – not that Bickslow knew how – and Evergreen was hitting him over the head with her fan and screaming at him to go and do something. But what exactly was he going to do? He didn't even know why she was crying, and he most certainly did not feel like getting in the middle of whatever the fuck that was going on over there.

Though Bickslow had to admit that Evergreen was right: he really did need to go and do something. If anything, it would get him away from Evergreen's fan, and he was always wanting to do that. It was at times like that that he wondered how Elfman could put up with her, but he figured it had something to do with the fact that she was basically his sister at that point and he was completely unable to see her as anything else (it didn't help that he was now utterly incapable of seeing any other woman as anything but a sister or a friend, which was something he'd long since realised, because he was more than head-over-heels when it came to Lucy), and she was kind of annoying, anyway

Well, according to Bickslow.

But he got up anyway, because he really did need to go and calm Lucy down, and he was only hoping it was something someone ( _Natsu_ ) had said and wasn't just the beginning of what was going to be seven-something months of hell. He could deal with her being really cuddly (oh, how he'd loved that over the last week and a half), and the fact that whatever medication her doctor had put her on really didn't work all that well apparently even if she'd only been on it for a few days at that point, but crying? Oh no. He couldn't deal with crying.

He got Erza to move and took her place on the bench and quickly pulled the blonde into his arms while rolling his eyes hidden behind his visor. She was a blubbering mess, and he could not understand a single thing that she was mumbling into his cloak. If anything, he wasn't even sure if they were supposed to be words or they were just random sounds. He only needed to glance up to the see her team grimacing to know that he wasn't the only one trying to determine what was a word and what was just a weird sound.

"Alright, come on," he sighed as Lucy continued to wail for some reason he really hoped made just a little sense. "What's wrong?"

"E-Everyone knew about t-the b-baby and no-one told m-me."

"Well, it wasn't _everyone_ ," Bickslow reminded her. "It was only a few—"

"Six!" she interjected. "Six p-people knew, Bicks!"

"Uh, well… I guess this isn't a good time to tell you Cobra knew, too?"

She looked up, stared at Bickslow for just a second and saw the grimace he was hiding behind his visor, then started crying even harder. So many people had known, and not one of them had told her. It only made Lucy feel betrayed, and honestly just a little humiliated, too, because god knows what her friends thought of her now. They probably thought she was stupid and that she really was living up to the blonde stereotype for not noticing and realising she was pregnant herself.

It was official. She couldn't come back to the guild. She was just going to keep herself locked up in the apartment with her daughter until the end of time and not see anyone from the guild (apart from Bickslow), not unless she wanted to die of shame, which she didn't.

She'd embarrassed herself enough for one lifetime.

And even then, it wasn't exactly like Lucy wanted to be around people who weren't going to support her or be happy for her. "A-And… A-And no one is h-happy for us," she added. "A-And _I_ can't be h-happy if n-no-one else is."

"What? That's ridiculous," Bickslow said. "They're your family so of course they're happy for you – for _us_." If he could glare at the mages surrounded them, he would have, but with his visor on it was impossible to do that. No one but Lucy could see through that, and it was something he still really didn't know how she could do. It was there to cover his eyes, yet every single time he had it on, she made a point of being able to directly meet his, even when she couldn't see them.

But no one else could do that, so glaring was pointless.

He hadn't needed to glare, though, because as soon as the words had left his mouth, everyone else had started talking and shouting over the top of each other. Natsu and Gray argued about who was happier for Lucy; Erza said she was going to bake Lucy a strawberry cake as a congratulatory gift and Wendy said she was going to help; Mira kept squealing about being able to plan a surprise baby shower that wasn't exactly going to be a surprise by the way she was going on about it, and Lisanna had joined in with the baby shower excitement by that point, too; Juvia was excited about being able to have a reason to knit socks and little hats; Gajeel was muttering about how he'd have someone new to tease and ridicule, something that only had Levy slapping his arm with a book and had Bickslow wanting to hit the guy with more than just a book ; Evergreen was squealing about how they just _had_ to have a girl because she needed someone else to love fairies too (little did she know that they were having a girl, but they weren't going to tell her that); Freed was just going on about how the baby was already an honorary member of the Raijinshuu; Laxus was only saying how he hoped that a baby would mean Bickslow would calm down just a little and maybe grow up (not that he hadn't been already), and everyone else…

Well, everyone else was just going overboard with telling Lucy (or screaming at her) that they were really happy for them. Though, whether it was because they actually were, or if it was because they just wanted her to stop crying, Bickslow couldn't tell.

"See, babe? They're happy for us," Bickslow whispered. Although, truth be told, Bickslow didn't give a shit whether or not everyone else was happy for them. It wasn't their life, and the only people who needed to be happy about what they were doing were himself and Lucy. Lucy was the important one, though. "They were just… Uh… Shocked. Yeah. They were more shocked than anything. You don't have anything to worry about."

Lucy looked up with a quiet sniffle. "You t-think?" she whispered.

He gave her a soft smile. "I _know_."

"So I w-won't have to l-leave the guild a-and hide in t-the apartment f-forever?"

"…What? No," Bickslow said. _Where the hell did that come from?_ "No hiding in the apartment, okay?"

Lucy nodded, and turned to look at her team again. "You're not going t-to kick me off the team, a-are you?" she asked. She was glad she wasn't going to have to hide in the apartment for all of eternity, and she had to admit that everyone being shocked about her news and that being the reason that they hadn't seemed excited for her had to make some sense…

But getting kicked off her team because she was having a baby? Lucy desperately hoped that wouldn't happen, because she was going to need something to keep her from going insane over the next few months, and until she _wasn't_ allowed to take any jobs, she wanted to keep going out… Or at least she wanted to try to.

"Huh? Why would we do that?" Natsu asked.

"W-Well, you know… B-Because I'm pregnant a-and I'll have to stop taking jobs a-at some point…"

"Like we'd ever kick you off the team for having a baby," Erza said.

"Besides," Gray chimed in. "If Freed says they're already a part of the Raijinshuu, then that just means they're a part of our team, too, and that just wouldn't be possible if their mother wasn't a member of the team for life."

"Do you… Do you r-really mean that?" Lucy whispered.

"'Course," Natsu said with his wide grin plastered on his face. "We wouldn't even be a team without you, Luce."

"Aye!" Happy cheered.

"You guys…" And just like that, Lucy, who had almost stopped crying already, was turning into a blubbering ball of tears once again for reasons she couldn't even begin to understand anymore.

All Bickslow could do was sigh, roll his eyes, and tuck her into his side again to give her the hug she apparently needed. "Alright, why are you crying now?"

"I-I don't k-know!" she wailed, and Bickslow couldn't help but chuckle quietly at that one just like everyone else did. So she was a mess, sure, but she was a mess that he would and could gladly call his. All he had to do was try and find a way to deal with all the tears that he was sure would be coming over the next seven months.

* * *

Bickslow pulled off his visor and pushed his hood back to run a hand through his hair as he closed the apartment door. The cloak was the next article of clothing to be lost as he made his way through the eerily silent apartment, and before he reached the bathroom where a nice, cool shower was awaiting – honestly, it was the end of summer yet it was so hot that week he honestly felt like he was back on Akane Beach – he was already untucking the way too warm jumper he had on and pulling off what Lucy (and everyone else) had deemed a skirt.

He'd been about to go and cool himself down in the shower when he noticed Lucy curled up in the tightest ball possible in the dark bedroom. He'd assumed she'd been at the guild with how silent the apartment had been, but now Bickslow was just worrying because he knew she'd had another appointment with the doctor from hell the afternoon before, and if she was curled up in a ball in bed now…

He just didn't want to think about that possibility. It had been a few weeks since they'd found out about the baby, and Lucy knew that he still didn't really want to have children, but he still cared. He'd be crazy if he didn't care about his baby, and he most certainly cared about the hell that their daughter was putting Lucy through. It wasn't like she knew, and it wasn't really her fault, but still.

Bickslow had wanted to be at that appointment, too, but Lucy had told him it'd be fine and she was probably just going in so Doctor Miriam Satana – who had been dubbed Doctor Satan by Lucy – could yell at her some more and call her a horrible mother for not having a proper diet, but it wasn't exactly Lucy's fault she could barely even keep _water_ down, let alone actual healthy food. But Bickslow had only been gone for three days. It had been three days of hiking through the most disgustingly muggy rainforest east of Hargeon, listening to Evergreen complain about her heels getting stuck in the dirt and the mud and ask him a million questions about the baby, just to find out that the vulcan lair they'd been looking for was more like a goddamn kingdom. He'd always hated forest vulcans, just because the babies always got too close to them and vulcans apparently had a love for tiki dolls. That, and they were just annoying, too.

But he'd still spent those four days worrying about Lucy; wondering if she was drinking enough and trying to eat _anything_ , or if the medication was actually working for once like it was supposed to and if she was feeling a little better. And just seeing Lucy curled up in a ball on the bed only made Bickslow worry a whole lot more and actually begin to panic. His shower could wait just a little while – not for long, hopefully, because he really did feel disgusting and probably smelled just as bad as he felt, but for a little while. Lucy was _slightly_ more important than a shower.

"Lucy?" He tossed the clothes he'd already managed to take off into the hamper before sitting down on the edge of the bed just next to her. "What's wrong?" he asked softly, reaching out to place a hand on her knee.

"I…" Lucy bit her lip and shook her head against the pillow. "Nothing, really," she mumbled. That was mostly the truth. She knew Bickslow would get what was actually bothering her out eventually, but for some reason she didn't really want to tell him right then.

And it was strange, really, because she told Bickslow everything, even if it was the most twisted and screwed up plot idea in the entire world – which only made Bickslow stare at her like she had three heads – or how she'd probably sleep with any of her super sexy and super badass favourite heroines if she had the chance, which only had Bickslow wondering just when the aliens had abducted her. But no matter how strange her thoughts her, she'd never been ashamed to tell Bickslow any of them.

But that one – the one that was the reason she was curled up in a ball on the bed with the giant pink ladybug behind her back and her necklace in her closed fist, she didn't want to tell Bickslow just yet.

Frowning down at the small frame of his fiancée, the Seith mage sighed. _She's not going to make this easy for me, is she?_ As he watched her for just a few more almost excruciatingly long moments – because god, that room was hot – he noticed how she seemed to be staring at her hands right in front of her, but instead decided to ask about something else. "How's Baby G?"

The nickname he'd already given their daughter got a small smile out of Lucy, so at least he knew she wasn't _completely_ miserable for whatever reason.

Lucy only groaned. " _Please_ stop calling her that." Not even a month had gone by, and Bickslow had already gone from calling her 'Baby Girl' to just 'Baby G', but the cringe-factor remained the same for both of them. "And she's fine," she said, and she reached out to slide the sonogram off the nightstand and hand it to Bickslow. "Satan is still being evil."

"Yeah?" he responded while staring down at the picture. Honestly, he couldn't even tell what he was looking at, but it was the first one he'd seen since Satan hadn't wanted to give her an ultrasound until then and she'd been far too busy yelling at Lucy at the first appointment, anyway. It didn't surprise Bickslow in the slightest that she was still being evil though.

"Mm. Spent half an hour yelling at me because I lost like four kilos—"

"Lucy…"

"Hey, don't _'Lucy'_ me," she chided, and she shot him a look so cold he wondered if Gray had been teaching her Ice Make magic. "It's _your_ daughter that's making me feel like death, so it's partly _your_ fault that I can't eat or drink anything without wanting to actually move into the bathroom permanently."

"Um… Okay."

"So don't just _'Lucy'_ me and make me feel even worse about it, because I'm trying my best but it's just so hard and _everything_ makes me want to throw up, because those stupid tablets aren't working and Doctor Satana just says I need to keep eating and drinking lots of water and she says I'm not trying… But I am! I really am…"

Bickslow was still getting used to everything, but the mood swings he found just a little entertaining. Thankfully, Lucy hadn't had many, though she had cried when she realised that mayonnaise was still making her sick, but she still hadn't been horrible over the last couple of weeks. He just found how quickly she could go from one extreme to another kinda funny, and it was kinda cute and kinda terrifying at the same time.

But… As her fiancé, it was his job to put up with them. "Alright. I'm sorry," he said with a small smile as the blonde sighed into the pillow.

"Apology accepted."

"Is Satan the reason you're upset?"

"I'm not upset," she mumbled.

"Sure you're not," Bickslow responded. "Come on, tell me. Please. I'm worried about you."

"I know you do, but… It's fine. Or at least it will be fine."

"That really doesn't make me feel better, you know…" If anything, it only made him feel worse, because he wanted to know why she felt like she couldn't tell him about whatever it was that was bothering her, too. That just wasn't how they worked.

Lucy closed her eyes and twisted the chain in her hand. She should have figured as much – she already knew Bickslow wasn't going to leave it, especially not any time soon. So with a sigh, she only rolled slowly and carefully after moving the pink ladybug out of the way and stretched her legs out over Bickslow's lap. "If I tell you, will you _please_ go and have a shower?"

Bickslow rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Fine," he chuckled. He couldn't even feel offended by that. "Now tell me," he said as he leant back on his hands.

She sighed again as she opened her hands and let the necklace fall. "Do you remember how I said Aquarius' key would reforge after a year?" she began softly. Bickslow nodded, and she said, "Well, today marks a year since I had to… To break her key."

"Oh."

"So as of right now, Aquarius' key is somewhere in the world, and I'm stuck in bed because I can barely even move."

Lucy would almost give anything to be able to go out and begin her search for Aquarius' key. If she was well enough, she'd be out there right then and she'd be dragging Bickslow with her just to prove that yes, although not ideal, she could still go out and travel the world to look for Aquarius' key, and she could still do everything she needed to do to make sure their daughter was healthy and safe.

But she wasn't well enough. She wasn't even close to being well enough, and she wasn't going to be for a while yet. She hadn't even been able to go with her team on the most menial of jobs in Clover for all of one night because each step she took only made her want to carry a bucket around her goddamn neck. So even if she was able to go and look for Aquarius' key, she couldn't.

It was just physically impossible.

And she kind of hated herself for it, too. She hated that she was so miserable and wasn't able to do anything at all, and she hated that she was having to choose between her first real friend and her daughter, because she really just wanted both.

She couldn't have both though. Lucy knew that, but she hadn't thought it would hurt that much, and she felt _silly_ for not realising it until that day. Of course it was going to hurt, because she was ultimately having to really let go of Aquarius. Someone else was bound to find her before she could even get out of bed, and then she'd be gone.

Even when she'd already been gone for a year, Lucy still missed her, and she missed her even more right then. But maybe she really was always going to miss Aquarius, and maybe she'd always hate herself just a tiny bit for not being able to go and search for her key right then because maybe by the time her daughter was born and she was able to go and search for it, it'd be gone.

But the fact that she'd always miss Aquarius was something she'd already accepted – she'd accepted that a year earlier, and Bickslow had been there back then like he was right then, too. She just felt like she was back at square one all over again, because she was stuck not really knowing what to do and not really like where her life was at that point, and she knew it was just something she'd need a bit of time to get over again.

That was why she hadn't really wanted to tell Bickslow. He'd dealt with her feeling like that before, but it wasn't exactly like he could fix her that time like he had before. What he'd done before was pull her out of the dark and seemingly bottomless pit and tell her she was allowed to grieve however the fuck she wanted to and that she really wasn't as alone as she thought she was. He couldn't do that that time, because she wasn't alone and she wasn't ever going to be alone again, and she didn't need to be stopped from heading further down the slippery slope to what she was scared to find out was at the bottom.

She just needed time to fix her that time, because there wasn't anything anyone could do other than get Aquarius back, and she couldn't do that.

Bickslow knew how she felt though. He knew that she hated being stuck in bed, and that she hated she wasn't going to be able to take any jobs in the near future – not unless she made a miraculous recovery and her condition went away which was just as likely as them actually having a boy. He knew she missed Aquarius still and that learning about her key reforming because it had been a year since _that_ day was just making her feel even worse about herself, and he just hated seeing her like that.

The problem involving Aquarius' key was something they'd talked about more than a bit in the last couple of weeks. Lucy's team knew that her key would reappear somewhere in the world, and even without asking them, they'd already promised to search for it where they could, and so had Bickslow. But even when Lucy had been thankful for it, she'd known it would be futile and that was something she hadn't had the heart to tell anyone but him. The world was a big place, and the chances of them – even Lucy herself – finding it were far too slim.

Even then, she'd resigned to losing Aquarius, and Bickslow hated that because he knew she didn't want to. She wanted to be out there and looking for it, wherever it may be. And, if she wasn't in such a state right then, he'd be one- _thousand_ percent behind her doing so. He'd be out there with her because he wanted to follow her in all of her endeavours, and it didn't help that he wasn't exactly fond of letting her go off by herself – especially whilst she was carrying his unborn child – because he'd miss her too much for his own good.

He wished he could do something about it though. Lucy knew as well as he did that it really wasn't ideal for her to be going out of _Magnolia_ , let alone Fiore, in her condition. Hell, it was probably the only reason she wasn't already gone and beginning her hunt. But that still didn't make it any easier for _him_.

He knew how he could help her; he could give her that tiny bit of hope. He just didn't really know if it was worth it. _But it's always worth it when it comes to Lucy._ Bickslow had long since realised that, and he'd long since realised that he would do anything to make sure she was happy. And right then, she needed to be happy.

She needed to be happy, because he didn't want her resenting their daughter before she was even born because it would mean giving up Aquarius entirely. That was what he was afraid of the most then, and to him it just seemed far too likely. Bickslow knew she hadn't wanted to choose between the baby and her spirit, yet that was what she'd already had to do in a sense. She'd had to turn her back on the chance of finding Aquarius before anyone else might.

He could help her, though. He could give her a _chance_ at having both. And maybe it would just be a tiny bit of hope and maybe it would still end up being in vain, but it was something. Maybe _something_ was all she'd need to get her through it all until she was able to really go out there and look, though.

It almost felt like he was going against everything he knew right then when he finally spoke after several long moments. "Well," he began with a sigh. "You know that if you weren't sick, you'd be able to go and look for her key."

"Please don't rub it in," she mumbled.

"No, hear me out," Bickslow said. He sat up and turned and tucked his foot under his knee, and only found himself idly massaging her calves. "I know that I agreed with you when you said you didn't think travelling all over the place would be the best idea when you're pregnant. And, you know, I really don't want anything happening to you or the baby, which is why I'm kinda glad you're not able to take any jobs now…"

"Jeez, thanks…"

"You know what I mean though," he chuckled. "But, if you weren't sick – and before you bite my head off again, I know it's not your fault. But if you weren't, then… Then yeah, maybe you really would be able to go and look for her. And I'd go with you whether you wanted me to or not because I'm a little bitch and I'd probably stress myself to death if you went out there without me."

"I would've dragged you with me if I could go anyway," she mumbled.

"Thank fucking god," he laughed again. Things would be so much easier if she wanted him with her so he wouldn't feel like the over protective (and slightly obsessive) boyfriend. "But you could go," he said as Lucy sat up slightly to put her necklace back on with Aquarius' former key. "You know, maybe if you get better in the next few weeks or something, we could go look for a little bit. But _only_ if you get better." He didn't really want her out there whilst she was sick, either, but he'd find a way to cope if he'd be able to watch her and still take care of her.

But still, it would only be if she got better, which he seriously doubted, but it was just a tiny bit of hope, and it was a tiny of hope Lucy really had needed, because her eyes lit up ever so slightly. "Really?"

Bickslow nodded. "Really. And even if you don't get better, there's always after she's born. Once she's a few months old or something, or even when she's a few years old and we could all go together."

The thought of them being able to go out and travel as a family brought a smile to her face, though it fell just as quickly when she realised just how far away that still was. "I'd love that," she whispered. "But that's still such a long time away, and someone probably would have found her by then…"

"We can still try though, right? Come on, I'm the quitter in this relationship, remember? Don't give up on her just yet, Lucy, not when there's still a chance."

She smiled weakly again. "I suppose." The chance was small, sure, but it was still there, and more than she had been before, Lucy was hoping that she managed to get better so she was able to go out and begin her search for Aquarius' key. Even if she didn't get any better while she was still pregnant, she was going to be looking forward to the time when she was able to go out, whether it was on her own while Bickslow stayed and looked after their daughter, or if they all went together.

She just had to remember that there was a chance and hold on to that hope, because that was really all she had right that.

"But…" She didn't bother hiding the grimace when she looked back up to Bickslow and pulled her knees up again. "Can you go and have a shower now? I'm pretty sure if you sit here any longer I'm going to throw up _on_ you."

* * *

It was nearly three weeks later when Lucy had thought she'd been well enough to maybe leave for a few days to see if she could get a bearing on where Aquarius' key might be. She'd entered her second trimester by that point, and she'd been so excited when she'd started feeling a little better by the start of her fifteenth week and she'd just hoped it meant she was one of the relatively lucky ones who wouldn't be stuck in hell for the next few months with her condition, but her body had apparently had other ideas and it had only ended up with her getting admitted to the hospital for treatment.

Bickslow had reluctantly said yes to letting Lucy go. He hadn't really wanted to, but she had been starting to look a little better – she'd been able to get out of bed and was eating some food (granted, it hadn't been close to healthy or very nutritional for her or the baby, but he only cared that she was actually eating something and managing to keep it down), and her _new_ doctor had seemed happy with the weight she'd managed to put back on and had only told her to do whatever worked, so long as she was sticking to taking her vitamins and doing her best to keep herself hydrated and fed.

So they began their search for Aquarius' key. Though, the morning they left, Lucy had been feeling worse than usual yet again. She'd pushed through it though, because she'd really wanted to go, and Bickslow had ignored his better judgement for the sake of keeping Lucy happy and just believed that it was just another horrible morning, because mornings really were the worst for Lucy.

Except the moment she almost fainted that same night was the moment Bickslow wished he hadn't ignored his better judgement. And, as per their agreement, they'd turned around and headed back to Magnolia (they hadn't gotten very far. With Lucy feeling sick, it had been a slow day and they'd barely even made it to Clover) and Lucy had let him take her to the emergency department, and she'd quickly been admitted.

It was Lucy's second morning in hospital when Bickslow was once again walking into her room right as the visiting hours began. He hated that the only night he'd been able to stay with her was the night she'd been admitted and had been told to leave and come back in the morning just the previous night, but he was finding a way to cope. Or really, it wasn't so much coping as it was distracting himself. They'd steadily been sorting through all of the furniture and random items of junk in the spare room over the weeks and they'd already decided on a colour for the room just because beige was a boring colour, so Bickslow had started painting the room in the middle of the night. There was only one upside to Lucy being in hospital, and that was that Bickslow knew she was being taken care of by the nurses and the doctors on the ward.

Still though, there was no way he wasn't going to be there as soon as it hit eight in the morning, even if he was relying on caffeine at that point. So when he did walk into the room, he was juggling the largest take-away cup of coffee the hospital canteen sold and the giant pink ladybug that Lucy had asked him to bring, and the book she'd been reading the week before and hadn't finished was tucked under his arm. "Morning!"

Lucy couldn't help but smile at how infectiously bright he was right then as she carefully sat up slightly in the bed, trying her best not to disturb the drip in her arm. "And which cup is that?" she asked.

"Um, three? Four, maybe? Honestly, I don't know," Bickslow said quickly. "I've been drinking the shit since three. And this one has five shots in it, or maybe it's six, so I'm either going to be crashing and burning before it kicks in, or I'm going to be awake for the next week."

"You should have at least tried to get some sleep."

Bickslow shook his head as he pulled the chair up in the room right up to the side of Lucy's bed after setting down the books on the bedside table and giving her the ladybug. "Wouldn't have been able to even if I _did_ try," he said, then leant forward to gently kiss her forehead before sitting on the edge of the chair. "How was _your_ night though?"

She shrugged as best she could. "I didn't get much sleep," she said. "My roommate went into labour around four, I think, and she was up complaining from when you got kicked out. And I basically feel like death incarnate still."

"Ah, I'm so glad the mother of my child is the grim reaper."

"Mm. So you should be," she laughed weakly. "What did you do last night if you didn't sleep then?"

"I painted Baby's room. Well, the first coat, anyway," Bickslow answered. At some point in the last few weeks, Lucy had managed to get him to drop the 'G' part of her name, and until they decided on a name, she was just Baby. It was just that the whole deciding on a name part was already proving to be difficult, which they'd already started doing because it actually helped distract Lucy a little. "And… What about Dominique for a name?"

"The light orchid?" she asked.

"Yup."

"Good, good… And what spelling for the name?"

"D-O-M-I-N-I-Q-U-E."

"Hmm, no," she mumbled. "It's a nice name, but with your last time it'll be a bit of a mouthful."

Bickslow rolled his eyes as he sipped at his coffee. "Yeah, fine." It had taken Lucy three months to learn how to pronounce his last name correctly. He found it entertaining, of course, because she just got so frustrated with it that it was adorable, so maybe tacking on _Dominique_ to the start of it would be just a little tricky, especially for a toddler. "What about… Brooklyn? Or Brook."

She slowly rolled onto her side after propping one of the pillows under her back, and hugged the ladybug to her chest and pursed her lips. "I like it. Add it to the list."

"Babies, remember that one."

"Remember Brooklyn!" they cheered.

"Ever says Ella if it's a girl, too," he added. "Natsu said _Natsu_ , boy or girl, and Erza said Charity. Also, speaking of your team… They said they'd come visit you after lunch when the visiting hours are open again." There was a couple of hours after lunch where Bickslow got kicked out again so Lucy could try and get some rest, and the day before he'd only gone to the guild. He'd figured her team deserved to know that Lucy had ended up in hospital, so he'd mentioned it, but that had only led to them following around the guild for two straight hours and asking him a million questions, and of course, that had only led to them overhearing that they'd started talking about names for the baby.

No one knew that they were having a girl, and they were actually planning on keeping that a secret just because Lucy wanted to keep _some_ details of her pregnancy away from the guild and her friends after they'd all found out she was pregnant before she did. But of course, Evergreen still hoped it was a girl, Natsu just wanted a Natsu Junior for some bizarre reason, but that had only led to Bickslow snapping that he should have his own kid, and Erza just apparently thought Charity was a nice name – which it was.

Gray, on the other hand…

Bickslow was really liking Gray right then. He was actually staying somewhat out of it, unlike half of their friends and Mira who was still going on and on about a baby shower. With the way everyone was carrying on he'd have thought it was everyone's kid Lucy was having, but nope, it was just Bickslow's, and strangely enough, he did actually like just a _little_ bit of privacy. He'd already accepted that a little privacy was all he – and they, really – was going to get. Fairy Tail just had almost no boundaries when it came to… Well, anything, including when someone was having a baby.

"Ella… No," Lucy said. "Just because I have a feeling it has something to do with fairies, so tell her I'm sorry, but no."

"It means beautiful fairy, apparently"

"Figures," she sighed. "Also, Natsu, _no_. Charity… Maybe."

"Babies?"

"Charity! Charity!"

Bickslow sighed and sipped at his coffee again, and only frowned when he realised it was already empty. He'd just have to go and get more later. For now, he just really wanted to hug his girlfriend, even though one of the nurses already had an awful habit of walking into the room just as Bickslow got up on the bed. That didn't scare him, though. There were more frightening things and people in the world than a nurse. Sure, that particular one was right up there, but Bickslow could deal with her.

So he tossed the empty cup into the bin (one of the babies knocked it in, because his aim was apparently terrible) and got up quickly. "Alright, move over."

Lucy smiled as she moved to the far edge of the hospital bed to make room for the Seith mage. "You know the nurse is going to come and yell at you now."

"Yeah, whatever. I don't really care about her right now," Bickslow said as he settled himself on top of the blanket, ankles crossed, and wrapped his arm around her until his hand was just brushing against her waist as she curled into his side with the ladybug between them. "I care about _you_. Any idea when you'll be able to come home though?"

She shook her head. "I can't go until I can at least drink water on my own, so probably not for a couple more days," she sighed. "One of the nurses said last night that the doctor will come by at some point today to see how I'm feeling, and if I'm still not able to eat or drink anything by tonight, they'll give me something through my IV to see if that helps."

"Do they think that will help? Since the stuff Satan gave you doesn't help at all."

"It's a different type so it might. I'll just have to wait and see."

"Hm, I suppose," he murmured. The waiting game sucked completely, but it was a game they were stuck playing. As her arm came over his hand to rest against her belly over the blanket she was under (she'd pretty much _popped_ at some point the week before, which had only led to Lucy spending that morning constantly pulling up her shirt to try and figure out how she'd basically going from just looking and feeling fat to looking and feeling actually pregnant basically overnight), Bickslow looked around the room yet again.

The curtain separating the two halves of the room was closed, even though her roommate was obviously gone, the thin tube running from her hand and up to the bag on the IV stand was sitting just behind her, and the cup full of ice chips was sitting on the table next to him. He didn't understand why the nurses had been so set on having Lucy try to suck on them all day, but whatever – he was just going to try and do his best to help her not get any worse. Quickly, he reached out for it, then held it out to the blonde just next to him. "Here, eat your ice chips."

* * *

When Mira set down Lucy's lunch order just in front of her, Lucy was suddenly realising how Erza feels when she sees strawberry cake. She was just over halfway in her pregnancy, and after ending up in hospital a second time barely a week after she'd been discharged the first time over a month earlier, she was finally starting to feel a lot better.

She still felt sick almost all the time, but once she'd reached week twenty-two, it had almost been like a switch had been flicked on (or off), and she'd magically started feeling better. Lucy could deal with the fact that mornings were still making her feel like she really was death incarnate, just because she wasn't confined to the bed anymore and she could actually move without wanting to permanently take up residence in front of the toilet, sink, or any bucket big enough for her to hide her shame in.

Plus, she was really enjoying being able to eat again. Lucy hadn't thought she'd have missed eating with the hell she'd gone through (and was still kind of going through), but she'd been proved wrong. She'd basically just been eating everything in sight for the last week and a half, and she didn't even care that it only entertained Bickslow and made her doctor happy. She just wanted food.

And Mira delivered her food, because she was amazing, and as Lucy stared down at the large bowl piled high with fries covered in melted cheese, bacon bits, diced pickles (something she hated that she loved so much) and all drenched in both ketchup and garlic aioli, she only wondered who she loved more right then: Mira, for bringing her something that looked almost too good to eat, or the actual food itself.

It was the food, of course. It was always the food.

So after the barmaid had returned to annoying her brother and teasing him about a certain mage, Lucy didn't hesitate to start pulling fries out of the bowl, and she most definitely ignored the more than strange looks the three teenagers sitting opposite her were shooting at her. It had taken the guild all of five minutes to learn not to question what Lucy ordered from the bar to eat once she'd started eating again. The teenagers, unfortunately, with them only visiting the guild every couple of weeks (or every weekend in Matt, the annoying one's case, because he had a massive crush on Wendy already), had yet to realise that it was dangerous to insult Lucy or comment on her appetite.

None of the three teenagers had seen Lucy for close to six months, though, so they couldn't help but find it a little strange that she was acting differently. None of them could figure out just why though; all they knew was that something was different besides her obvious increase in appetite.

Matt only chuckled nervously as Rhett, the brunet on his left, and Kai, the one with the glasses, just stared at her in something that was between awe and shock. "So uh… Are you really going to—"

"Finish that sentence. I _dare_ you."

Matt turned slowly at the sound of the low voice behind him, just to find the tall Seith mage with an almost wicked smirk on his lips standing right behind him with his arms folded.

As much as he loved to annoy Bickslow, Matt knew the guy didn't like him very much, but it was only because he liked Wendy and he'd learned that when it came to the youngest Dragon Slayer, _everyone_ was just a little protective of her. Unfortunately for Matt, Bickslow was one of the ones that was more than just a _little_ protective of her, so when Bickslow hated him for liking Wendy, all of Wendy's Slayer siblings hated Bickslow for being the reason they knew each other in the first place. They all also hated Matt himself, too, but they were easy enough to avoid when he visited Fairy Tail. Most of the time they just glared at him until Wendy yelled at them, though there had been a few occasions where Gajeel and Natsu had told him that the only way he was going to be able to date Wendy was if he managed to beat both of them.

Bickslow still wasn't as bad as the Dragon Slayers, thankfully. He just made a point of dragging him away from Wendy every now and then when he flirted with her in the guild. He was still able to be dealt with.

But right then, Matt was actually kind of scared of the Seith mage. Suddenly commenting on Lucy's meal choice seemed like the worst idea in the entire world. "What sentence?" he laughed nervously. "I wasn't going to say anything at all. Nothing. That was it."

"Uh-huh. Sure it was." Bickslow knew otherwise, of course, but he really didn't care all that much about the teenagers right then. He was more interested in Lucy since he hadn't seen her for nearly a week, having been out on a job with his team, so when he looked back to Lucy sitting on the opposite side of the table as he made his way around there, he really couldn't help but roll his eyes. It was probably the happiest he'd seen her in weeks, and all because of… Well, Bickslow wasn't really sure you could still call it food, but whatever. "You right there?"

"Yup!" she mumbled as Bickslow kissed her cheek – her mouth was otherwise occupied.

"And how's my baby?"

"She's good," Lucy answered quietly a soft smile, and she said it just loud enough so Bickslow would hear, but no one would be able to overhear it. The guild still didn't know they were having a girl, but Mira and Levy had been asking them about it for the last two weeks straight. "Very energetic today, actually."

They both turned at Matt making a gagging noise and looking completely mortified. Rhett and Kai just looked a little bored, but Bickslow knew it was just because they were so used to hearing stupid things come from the blond's mouth, even more so when Bickslow was around because he really did live to annoy the guy. "Gross," Matt muttered.

Bickslow rolled his eyes. "What now?"

"You," the teenager said, cringing. "You _still_ call her 'baby'? Aren't you like way too old for that?"

"Firstly, yes. Secondly, no, and I don't know how many times I've told you that I'm not even _close_ to being thirty. Thirdly, I wasn't actually referring to Lucy," Bickslow answered. He got that Matt liked irritating him, but sometimes all Bickslow wanted to do was strangle him.

He couldn't do that, unfortunately. It would upset Lucy and Wendy and half of the women in the guild. It'd make the Slayers happy, sure, but he was more worried about what the members of the opposite sex would do to him if he hurt the kid.

Matt raised an eyebrow and sat back, folding his arms. "Then who the hell were you referring to?"

Bickslow looked back to Lucy just to see her smirking a little wickedly. "Do they not know…?"

Lucy shook her head. She'd honestly thought they would have heard about them having a baby with the amount of time they spent in the guild, or at the very least Wendy would have told Matt (because she kind of had a crush on him, too), but apparently not. She found it just a little entertaining as well. She wasn't really sure why, but there was something about completely shutting down Matt that appealed to her because she knew he wouldn't really have any other arguments for Bickslow. "I've been sitting down the entire time they've been here," she giggled.

"I get the feeling there's something you don't know…" Rhett mumbled to the blond beside him.

"Ya think?"

Sighing, Lucy pushed the bowl of fries back slightly and wiped her hands on a napkin, then stood up from the bench she'd been sitting on all afternoon. "He was referring to _this_ baby," she said. Lucy didn't even need to point to what she meant, because it was pretty damn obvious at that point, and all three of them were already staring at her belly with wide eyes and jaws hanging open.

"You…" Rhett mumbled.

Kai was pointing as he said, "Huh?"

"When the hell did that happen?!" Matt demanded as Lucy sat back down and quietly complained about her feet hurting to the Seith mage.

"About five and a half months ago," Lucy answered as she picked up another few fries.

"But… _Why?!"_

"Because we decided to make a person...?" Well, they didn't decide to – it just happened. But they were rolling with it.

"But… But _how?!_ " Matt asked again. There was something about his least favourite Seith mage and favourite Celestial Spirit mage (that he was still a little annoyed actually had a boyfriend – or fiancé, as he'd learned a few months earlier) having a baby he couldn't quite get his head around. It sure explained what was so different about Lucy, sure, but it was just so _weird_. Those two? Having a kid? That was just so strange.

"Well, you see…" Bickslow chimed in with a devious glint in his eyes and a completely mischievous grin in place. "When a man and a woman love each oth—Ow!"

Lucy just about choked when Bickslow decided to answer, and she'd only been able to not so gently punch his arm to get him to shut up. "No. Just _no_. Don't even go there, Bicks."

"No? Okay," he laughed, his tongue lolling from his mouth before he turned back to the teenagers who looked just a little embarrassed. _Ah, I've done my job well._ "But how? Well… Yeah. I'm assuming you took at least one health class…"

"Bickslow," Lucy warned.

He rolled his eyes. "But because we're idiots and thought having a kid was a somewhat good idea, that's how."

"Right…" Matt mumbled.

It was only when the blond teenager remained awfully silent after that and kept staring at the far edge of the table – if he'd been looking any higher, Bickslow probably would have gotten up just to hit him over the back of his head for looking at her breasts – that Bickslow actually began to worry a little bit. Matt was never quiet when he visited the guild, because each time Bickslow had come in over the last few months when he'd been looking after Lucy, he'd seen Matt and the other teenagers fit in just a little too well (the fourth one from the diner, the one whose name he still couldn't remember, was apparently thinking about joining the guild. He rarely came in, though, since they were all finishing up with school, and Bickslow had no idea what type of magic he had anyway), and what Bickslow could tell, he wasn't really _ever_ quiet.

He was then, though, and it was really freaking Bickslow out.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Bickslow asked worriedly as Kai waved a hand in front of the blond's face.

"I think you might have broken him."

"Huh." He arched an eyebrow then turned to Lucy beside him. "See? Now look what you've done: you broke the poor kid."

Lucy only looked up and to the teenager directly opposite her, watched him just stare at her for a few moments, then she shrugged and shovelled some more cheesy fries into her mouth. "Good."

He'd be fine.

* * *

Once Lucy had started feeling better, the weeks seemed to roll by in a blur. Halloween had been skipped because it had been before she'd started feeling well enough to actually go out (though it had been a Sunday, and the house rule that Sundays were to be spent with zero or minimal clothing still stood, so it hadn't been a complete disaster for them), and then before long they'd been entering the last month of the year.

They'd kept to their usual traditions that year, too, though they had had to be adjusted just a little bit.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, they'd gone out to the former Heartfilia Estate to where Lucy's mother's tombstone still remained, and after a lot of tears from Lucy, they'd left and headed straight to Akane Beach. They'd decided to actually spend Christmas there that year instead of spending the week prior there and be back in Magnolia for the actual holiday. It had been just a little disappointing, not being able to spend it in the guild, but they'd both decided that spending their last Christmas with Caspian before their daughter arrived would be a nice change for one year.

Even if it had been the middle of winter at Christmas, the weather in Akane Beach hadn't failed to disappoint, as usual. Managing to convince Lucy that she was still able to rock a bikini at twenty-nine weeks had been more than a little difficult for Bickslow, but Lucy had eventually given in when she'd had enough of the heat. The fact that she really wasn't able to handle the heat had been the only downside to their trip to Akane Beach that time around, but she'd coped.

Sort of.

In January, Lucy finally let Mira give her the baby shower she'd been going on and on about for months. Bickslow hadn't known about it, so he'd only walked back in after a two-day job to find his living room filled with pink and blue balloons (because no one else but Caspian knew it was a girl, and the baby's room had been completely off limits and even locked so no one could peek inside and find out from the colour of the walls), rainbow cupcakes, torn wrapping paper on every single surface including the floor, too many baby things for him to count, and a whole lot of women. Apparently when it comes to someone in Fairy Tail having a baby, everyone else really does want to get involved in some way.

By the middle of February, though, with Lucy's due date barely a month away, things had started to get a little stressful. First it was Lucy really beginning to panic, then it was Bickslow trying to calm Lucy down and hide that he was really freaking the fuck out, and then it was him getting his annual dose of the flu. Every year without fail, Bickslow managed to get sick towards the end of winter.

It completely ruined Valentine's Day that year though because he'd been too busy with his head in the toilet bowl, simultaneously hating himself and apologising to Lucy for the hell she went through in the first half of her pregnancy. After two days of it where Bickslow only proved to get worse (unsurprisingly. He was always down for at least a week when he got it each year, though the previous year hadn't been that bad, thankfully), Lucy had only joked that he was probably knocked up too.

Technology wasn't there yet, though.

Thankfully.

Even if Bickslow hadn't come down with his annual dose of the most horrible flu ever (to him) right before the most romantic day of the year, it wasn't like they'd have gone out and done anything, anyway. Lucy hadn't wanted to do anything, because her feet and back had hurt so much that the idea of going out anywhere just made her feel worse than what she'd constantly felt like since her twenty-second week.

But that was how they got to right then: eight p.m. on the 17th February, where Bickslow was moaning and groaning about being sick in bed, and Lucy was slowly pacing up and down the hall with her hands on her lower back and the top of her belly, and waiting for the just annoying pain to go away yet again. She knew she wasn't going into labour yet because it was too early for that, but the last day and a half had been just a little uncomfortable, and it had been a constant game of trying to do anything to make the false contractions just that much more bearable. Eating and walking helped, so she did that. A lot.

There was a quiet knock on the apartment door as Lucy veered off to the fridge to grab something to eat, and she gave a tired smile when she opened up the door to reveal Wendy with Matt just beside her. "Hi, Wendy," Lucy sighed, letting the two into the apartment. "Thank you so much for coming." She'd called the young Dragon Slayer earlier to see if she wasn't too busy to help Bickslow with his flu in any way, because when her patience was wearing incredibly thin, a whining and germy Seith mage was getting on her last nerve and she was sure she was going to rip out her hair if she had to put up with him being sick for much longer. She felt a bit hypocritical since he'd looked after her for five-odd months and she couldn't even cope with one measly week, but whatever. She figured it was just a little justified since Bickslow hadn't been preparing to bring an entire new person into the world, whereas she was.

But when she'd called Wendy earlier, she'd only interrupted a date, apparently, and Lucy kinda felt bad for ruining it. She'd told Wendy that Bickslow would survive until the morning and she could come around in the morning, but the young Dragon Slayer had all but insisted on coming over that night and cutting her date with the blond short. It wasn't their first date, anyway, so it wasn't the end of the world.

"It's no problem," Wendy said softly. "I don't think I'll be able to help much if it's just the flu, but I can try."

"That's okay. Just whatever you can do to make him stop acting like a giant baby."

"I'm not being a baby!" the Seith mage shouted from down the hall. And even if he was, it was perfectly warranted. Whining was a must when one was sick.

"You are so!" Lucy yelled back as Wendy had already begun heading down to the bedroom. She only rolled her eyes as she heard Bickslow whine to Wendy, then walked back around to the kitchen to finally get something to eat. When she noticed just how uncomfortable Matt looked, she couldn't help but smile slightly. "Do you want anything to eat or drink?" she asked gently.

Matt shook his head quickly. "No, thank you. We had dinner just before."

"Oh god," Bickslow suddenly groaned again. "Is that _Matt_? Was that that idiot I just heard in my living room? _Wendyyy_."

Lucy sighed and dropped herself down onto the sofa. Even when the two had been dating for more than two months at that point, Bickslow still really hated the idea of them being together. Lucy thought they were cute, but Bickslow and the rest of the Dragon Slayers completely disagreed. She felt just a little sorry for Matt because of it all, too, because he was a good kid.

You know, when he wasn't asking her to his prom or pissing off the Dragons, or just generally being an annoyance.

"So uh," Matt sat down on an armchair and watched Lucy absentmindedly eat crisps from the small bowl balanced on the top of her stomach while she gently rubbed circles on one side. "You're due soon, right?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm. Got a month to go."

"Decided on a name yet?"

"Not yet," she sighed. "We've sort of narrowed down our list of names, but we still can't agree on one."

He nodded. "Got a personal favourite?"

"I have a few… But don't expect me to tell you them."

"Aw, why not?" the teenager asked, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Because that would ruin the surprise," Lucy answered. He may not be a member of the guild, but he still wasn't allowed to know it was a girl either. He'd just have to wait like everyone else.

"You're no fun."

Lucy shrugged and looked up just as Wendy came back down the hall. "He's not whining anymore. Is he dead?" she asked.

"No…" Wendy said, and Matt only looked a little shocked at Lucy's slightly warped joke. "But he'll probably be completely out for the next few hours. I gave him something that Porlyusica made for colds and flus and he's already asleep, but it won't really take effect until tomorrow. I'm sorry I can't do more for him, Lucy."

She waved her hand dismissively. "It's fine. He's a grown man, _apparently_ , so he can deal with a flu. He gets it every year, apparently; he's just been driving me insane this week."

Wendy laughed quietly as she followed Matt to the door. "Well, while he's quiet, you should get some rest, too. You need it," she said.

"Yeah, I know," Lucy sighed. "But thank you, Wendy. I'm sorry for interrupting your date."

"It's fine, really," Matt said that time, and Wendy only blushed as she looked down to her toes before looking back to Lucy and smiling politely.

"W-Well, goodnight!" Wendy said, and she gently pulled the door closed behind them, leaving Lucy on the lounge and just enjoying the silence from not having a Seith mage constantly whining and groaning in the background for just a little while longer.

Lucy tried to get some rest that night, too, because she really did need it. It just didn't happen that night, because by midnight, she was back to pacing the hall and trying to walk herself through the pain, because nothing else was working. Bickslow was awake again by that point, so while he spent the next two hours going back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom and complaining about how sick he felt and how much his head hurt, Lucy spent those two hours moaning in pain and having Horologium be her stopwatch.

By three-thirty, she really was beginning to panic, and Bickslow had stopped whining about his own problems at that point and started listening to hers. It was way too early for her to be going into labour, and she'd said the words 'too early' far too many times over the last few hours as if saying them would help, but they hadn't, of course. She'd been able to deal with ones from earlier in the day, because they'd kind of just been more annoying than anything and they hadn't been every ten minutes which had been a definite plus.

But those ones, the ones that had her hunched over the counter in the kitchen and waiting for it to pass, she most definitely could not deal with. Too early or not, she was ninety-nine percent convinced her daughter was telling her she wanted out.

It was closer to four in the morning when Bickslow came out after getting dressed. He felt a whole lot worse than he looked, and he was pretty sure he was going to pass out from a lack of energy any moment now, but he'd had enough of watching Lucy. He hadn't really known what he was supposed to do to help her, and he hadn't even really been sure if there was anything he could do in the first place because he hadn't even known if it was just the 'practice' contractions or the real thing. But he was pretty sure it was the latter, which scared the living hell out of him because he'd really been relying on those four weeks they'd supposed to have had left until she was due, but he was only able to remember that not everything can go accordingly to plan.

So when he came out to the kitchen just to find Lucy leaning on the counter with her head down, and Horologium standing in the corner (how Lucy had managed to keep the spirit's gate open for all that time, he had absolutely no idea), he only asked, "Hospital?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded. "Because I think my water just broke, too."

* * *

When Bickslow woke up, he found himself in a hospital bed in what he knew to be the emergency department on the first floor. He had absolutely no idea why he was there, and as he sat up slightly and went to rub at his eyes, he realised that his left hand – the one that was hurting like an absolute bitch – had been bandaged up, and his right arm apparently had a needle in it and was connected to the goddamn IV.

As he watched the nurses and doctors busily rush around the ward, Bickslow tried to figure out just how the hell he'd ended up there. With his head pounding and his stomach still feeling like it had been punched a few times, it proved to be just a little difficult, but he pushed through that to try and put everything together.

He could remember getting to the hospital just after four and Lucy had been admitted then because by the time she'd been put in a bed, her contractions had been closer still, somehow. He remembered her crying a lot after that, too, mostly about how she was scared and she wasn't able to do it and that it was all happening too quickly. Then there'd been lots of swearing at one point after that, too, and then it had gone back to crying and he'd had to try and calm her down.

He was sure it had been close to six, or maybe it had been seven by the time she was ready to deliver. He remembered that, because he remembered the vice-like grip she'd had on his hand at one point.

…And then she had squeezed it so tightly he'd been sure he'd felt a few bones crack, which he realised explained the bandages, but Bickslow was beginning to think that he'd passed out after that.

He'd been feeling sick since they'd left the apartment, and he'd found it hard to stay on his feet the entire time after, from just standing next to the bed when she'd cried and freaked out, to following her around the small room when she'd just wanted to walk around between contractions. But the last thing he could remember from the last few hours that had admittedly been a bit of a blur, was Lucy most likely fracturing his hand when she'd apparently had to start pushing, and after that, he had nothing.

But he was entirely convinced he'd missed the birth of his daughter, which really fucking upset him, because he'd really wanted to be there even if he did feel like like death and would much rather be curled up in his bed, and he'd wanted to be there next to Lucy because he'd known she was scared.

But nope. He'd passed out. It was just a little embarrassing, too.

When the curtain that had been obscuring most of his view of the emergency room was suddenly pushed back, he stopped fiddling with the catheter in his arm, and just stared at the nurse who was giving him a brilliant smile as he looked up from his chart. "Oh. You're up," he said.

"Uh, yeah…" Bickslow mumbled, then cleared his throat. "Do you uh… Do you have the time?"

The nurse checked his watch then said, "Just after nine-fifteen."

 _Oh no…_ "Can I um… Go?" Bickslow asked. "I mean, my fiancée was—"

"Well, that depends," the nurse interjected. "Your file here says you can be discharged once you're awake, but you're not going to pass out again if I say yes, are you?"

Bickslow shook his head.

"Then I suppose you can go. I'll be back in a minute to get that drip removed then." He set the file on the end of the bed, then disappeared behind the curtains again, before coming back just a few minutes later and pulled on a pair of gloves. "You've seen someone about that flu, yes?" he asked as he slowly unhooked the saline solution.

"Yeah," Bickslow mumbled. Wendy counted, right? _Of course Wendy counted._

"How's your hand then?"

"Fine, I guess."

"And the pain?"

 _Hurts like a motherfucking bitch._ "Bearable."

The nurse nodded as he taped the small cotton ball to Bickslow's arm, then picked up the chart again and read the doctor's notes. Bickslow didn't listen to a single word he said though, instead he only followed him over to the nurses' station where he was handed his discharge papers and a pen, and then been pointed to a chair after saying that yes, he understood what he had to do. He'd essentially been admitted for dehydration and not his broken hand, which made sense because he still had the flu, and even if he'd only been in for a few hours, there was still a whole lot of paperwork to sign, and when he wasn't right handed, signing things proved to be more difficult than he'd imagined.

Once all was done and sorted out, he went straight back up to the ward Lucy had been in after getting directions from another nurse. He had to pass the nursery to get there, and he'd almost been able to walk past it completely without so much as glancing in, but he hadn't been able to just walk straight past it. Bickslow hadn't been able to stop himself from slowly walking back until he was standing in front of the long window and just looking at each of the tiny little humans in the pink and blue blankets and tiny little beanies.

He didn't even know if _his_ tiny little human was in there right then. He assumed she would have been born by then, but she could be with Lucy right then, wherever she was, or she could be somewhere else. Bickslow really hated not knowing though.

"Which one is yours?"

He turned to the nurse standing just next to him – he hadn't noticed her coming up beside him – before looking back into the nursery with his brow furrowing. "I… I don't know."

"Well, what's their name? We'll see if we can find your baby for you," the nurse offered but Bickslow only shook his head.

"She doesn't have a name yet," he mumbled.

"What about her mother's name then?"

"Uh, Heartfilia. Lucy Heartfilia."

The nurse pulled a file from the clip on the door and looked down the list of names on it, and shook her head slowly before looking back up to Bickslow. "No Heartfilias in here. What about your name?" When Bickslow told her his surname, she just stared at him for a second before cautiously asking, "…What was that again?"

Bickslow only rolled his eyes and held out his hand so he could read the list himself. It wasn't even pronounced the way it was spelled, but _he_ knew how it was spelled, how it was supposed to sound, and what it looked like on paper. It was just easier for everyone if he looked at it himself, but there was nothing on those pages with his last name or her last name. So he only shook his head and handed the file back to her.

She frowned, but then it quickly turned into another smile filled with hope, and she said, "Not to worry. She'll be somewhere."

And she was somewhere, although she hadn't been with Lucy like he'd thought and hoped. Instead, the nurse only led him to another part of the ward, and then over to one of the incubators with his last name (slightly misspelled, but it was close enough) on it beneath the blank space for her first time. "Told you she'd be somewhere," the nurse said softly as Bickslow crouched down on the other side.

Bickslow had known that because she was early there'd be a chance some issues would arise. He'd never though much about it though, and neither had Lucy, because there hadn't been any indication she'd be born that early, or at least there hadn't been any that _he'd_ been aware of. Still though, they'd both hoped it wouldn't have happened with them, even if she had been born closer to her due date.

It broke his heart to see his daughter in there though with the oxygen tube on and apparently helping her get more oxygen into her little lungs, or so he thought. She was small, too, or at least she was smaller than he thought she should've been, but they'd always known she'd been a little under what was considered average for how far along Lucy had been, though her doctor hadn't thought it was something to stress about all that much.

But as much as it hurt seeing his little girl in there and hearing the constant beeping of the monitors and machines she was connected to, and as much as he hated that he wasn't able to touch her and all he could do was have his hand on the glass, he almost felt as if everything was in its place in the world and as if everything was…

Well, it was almost as if everything was perfect. Or close to it, considering the circumstances, but it all just felt so _right_ , and Bickslow knew that it was finally seeing and having his daughter in the world was the reason he felt that way.

He hadn't expected her to make her feel that way, though. Bickslow had known he'd be happy once she was born, but not like that. Even when he'd wanted Lucy to keep the baby, and even when he'd cared about them both and looked after Lucy and tried to do his best to make sure they were both healthy, he'd never really been able to determine if them having a baby had been the best idea. He hadn't known whether he'd be able to do it without having a complete mental breakdown, and he hadn't known whether he'd be able to look at their daughter and be totally and completely happy with everything right up until that very moment and know that for certain a baby was what he wanted as much as Lucy did.

It was though, and that feeling surprised him. He could look at her right then with his hand just resting on the glass and leaving fingerprints and with tears in his eyes because he wanted nothing more than to be able to hold her and see Lucy hold her, and know it was what he wanted. She was what he wanted. It was one of the few moments in Bickslow's life that he was completely certain of himself, too, and it really was all because of their daughter.

He was so undeniably and almost unexplainably happy, and so completely smitten already, and he wasn't really scared of anything, either. Of course, there was still the obvious fear of whether or not she would be okay, but everything else didn't seem as scary as it had been just the day before. The thought of her ending up as a screw-up like him, or maybe even getting his magic didn't really frighten him anymore. It was still there, but he wasn't bothered by it, just because he felt like everything would end up being okay.

It was the same way Lucy always made him feel, actually. She always made him feel like everything would be okay and he could always forget about everything else that worried him when he was with her, because none of it mattered. And their daughter made him feel like that right then, too. Even when he was so scared and worried about her, he felt like everything would work itself out in the end. He'd be okay, Lucy would be okay, and their baby would be okay, too.

That was the one thing he needed to make sure of the most, though. He needed her to be fine and he needed her to be okay, because now that he had her, he somehow couldn't seem to imagine his life without her in it, and she was only a couple hours old. "Is she… Is she going to be okay?" he eventually whispered, though he eyes never left his daughter.

"She should be just fine," she answered softly. "Her lungs just aren't fully developed yet and she needs a bit of extra help for a little while. It's not that uncommon in babies born early, so I wouldn't worry too much if I were you."

Bickslow nodded. "And… And Lucy?"

"The mother? She's probably in her room resting. Would you like me to take you to her, or did you want to stay here for a little while longer? You can hold her, if you'd like."

He looked up suddenly. "I can do that?" He wanted to go and be with Lucy, even if it would mean leaving their daughter temporarily, but he wanted to be able to hold her, too, and he really hadn't thought he'd been able to because she was in that horrible _box_.

"Of course," the nurse smiled.

* * *

Lucy was sobbing silently into a pillow when Bickslow finally got there, and he was instantly rushing over to her side once he'd realised. He didn't even hesitate to carefully climb up onto the narrow bed next to her, and he didn't even care if a nurse was going to come in and tell him to get off again, because he wasn't going to. He was going to gently pull Lucy into his side and be grateful there weren't any tubes or wires or anything of the sort in the way, and hold her as best he could, considering he apparently had three tiny fractures in one hand that were making it hurt a lot, and she'd _just_ had a baby like three hours earlier, and he figured she was probably going to be at least a little sore.

That didn't really seem to bother her though, or if it did, she wasn't showing it much when she attempted to curl up in his arms. Bickslow didn't really understand why she was crying that time, and as he sat there for a while just running his hand from her shoulder down to her elbow in a soothing motion, he tried to figure it out on his own, but he couldn't. He thought she'd be happy then, but she really wasn't, and it worried him. "Hey, what's the matter?" he asked quietly. "Why are you crying?"

"B-Because t-the baby wasn't c-crying after s-she was born, a-and they took her s-somewhere else b-before I got to s-see her, a-and they s-said I could go and see her l-later, but n-no-one has told me w-when, or… Or if s-she's okay…"

No one had barely said two words to her about her baby in the last few hours. They'd asked if they had a name picked out for her right after she'd been born, but they hadn't been able to agree on one so she didn't even have a name, and the only time Lucy had seen her was right before she'd been put in one of the incubators and wheeled out of the room with half of the medical staff that had been in her room. She hadn't heard her daughter cry, or even seen her face, or even held her, and she didn't even know what she was supposed to be thinking right then, because she just didn't know what was going on.

Bickslow sighed as he tilted his head to rest his cheek on the top of her head. So she hadn't even see her own baby – he almost hated that Lucy hadn't been allowed to see their daughter more than anything else about the entire situation. But at the very least, he had seen her, and even when Lucy didn't know if their baby was okay, he did. He could at least try to comfort her when she needed it the most.

"It's okay," he whispered. "Don't worry."

"B-But what if it's not?" Lucy stammered. "What if… W-What if I did s-something wrong?" It wouldn't surprise if she did. She'd spent weeks not taking the correct vitamins because she hadn't known, but she'd stopped worrying about the harm it could've done when each visit to her doctor had only ended with her being told not to worry (well, with the second doctor, anyway). And even after that, it really wasn't like she'd been eating a strictly healthy diet. She'd really just been eating what she felt like and didn't make her feel even worse than she already did.

But what if anything or _everything_ she'd done over the last several months was the reason her baby was sick? She hated that she didn't know if she really was or not, because no one had told her anything at all.

"Lucy, you did nothing wrong. She's fine," Bickslow said.

"B-But… You d-don't—"

"I _do_ know," he cut her off gently. She lifted her head to look up at him, the tears and confusion sparkling in her deep coffee eyes, and he smiled. "I saw her."

"You… You d-did?" she whispered.

Bickslow nodded. "Just before. She has one of those tubes in her nose so she can get enough oxygen because her lungs are a little underdeveloped because she was a little early, but… She's fine," he explained.

So it wasn't what Lucy wanted, but it wasn't the worst scenario she'd thought of over the last few hours."A-And do you… Do you know i-if she'll be o-okay?"

He nodded again. "She'll be okay."

Lucy instantly felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and even her heart. She still wanted to see her and be able to hold her, but at least she wasn't completely freaking out about whether or not she was okay, because she believed – and hoped – that she would be. She believed Bickslow.

"D-Did you hold h-her?" she asked as she ducked her head against his shoulder again.

"I did," Bickslow answered. "Well, sort of. I held her hand, because I can't really hold her when my hand is like this…"

Lucy let out a quiet laugh when she looked to the bandages around his hand. She really hadn't meant to do it, and she really hadn't even known she was capable of doing it, but she couldn't help but find it a little entertaining, just like how she realised him having passed out only twenty minutes before their daughter was actually born was pretty funny, too. Lucy hadn't thought it was amusing at the time, because she'd been too busy freaking the hell out, but after, she'd seen the amusement in it.

"I'm r-really sorry that I b-broke your hand," she laughed weakly.

"Ah, don't be. I'm kinda amazed, to be honest," Bickslow admitted. "I'm sorry for passing out though. That's… Yeah, that's kind of embarrassing."

"A-And I'm going to tell everyone that y-you did."

"Oh joy." He really wasn't ever going to live that one down, was he? Though, it wasn't all that unexpected, because he'd ended up missing the birth of his daughter because of… Well, he really wasn't all that sure just why he'd fainted, but it didn't really matter. The fact he'd missed her being born didn't really matter all that much either. It sucked, yeah, and he really did wish he'd been there, but what mattered then was that she was there, and she was okay, and she was going to be just fine because she was absolutely, hands down, completely and totally perfect. "She's really cute, you know."

Lucy smiled softly as she looked back up. "Is she?"

"Yup. She has your nose, too," he said, and quickly kissed the tip of her nose. "And she's tiny, but in a good way, because she's adorable, and I kinda wish I wasn't sick right now and my hand wasn't broken so I could actually hold her, 'cause I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let go."

"You can't hog her, Bickslow."

"Ah, but I can try."

"I'm sure you will," she sighed. "But… We need a name for her now."

Bickslow grinned as he completely settled himself against the pillows with Lucy resting her head on his shoulder again. A name, he had. It wasn't one they'd ever mentioned before, but somehow, as soon as Bickslow had seen her, he'd known that it was the perfect name for her. In his head, that's who she was. "I have one."

"What is it then?"

"Aurora."

She looked back up, and her lips were already curling into a smile before she whispered, "Aurora?"

He nodded. "Well, it means dawn, and you know, dawn marks the start of each new day, and… And this is kind of a new beginning for us," he explained slowly. "Because we're a real family now, and it's something new and I feel like it's a new start for us. She's our new beginning."

And just hearing Bickslow say that made Lucy realise that he was right. It was a new start for them in a way, because now their life together was heading in a direction that they'd both never really expected it to, and they had a beautiful baby girl to take with them. Even if she hadn't seen her daughter yet, she knew that she was beautiful, and she knew that that was her name.

Aurora was her name, and she couldn't really explain how she knew that, but she just knew. It felt right, and it sounded right, and she was sure that it was perfect for her. "Aurora," she whispered again. "I think it's perfect."

* * *

 _So it was another long chapter. Sorry about that. I couldn't split it, and sure, most of what is in here probably could have been left out, but I didn't really want to. Also, yeah, I don't even really know what I'm writing when it comes to a lot, so if anything is super wrong and completely left field, I apologise. My usual argument is that it's a story so not everything is going to be completely perfect and 100% accurate, but yeah, I'm sorry. I spend hours researching a lot of things I put into my stories, but even then not everything can be perfectly accurate._

 _Now that that is out of the way...  
_

 _I promised the teenagers would be back. Matt and the others are actually around 16/17, and Wendy is around 15/close to 16 in this AU, so I don't think it's that weird...  
Also, the fourth one joining the guild - there always was a fourth one in the diner, but he did originally leave. He's quiet, and shy, and he doesn't get a name in this story. He's kinda just there but not. You don't need to worry about him, but just in case anyone noticed that and was curious, I thought I'd try and explain it a little. _

_And yeah, the next chapter is the epilogue! I'm actually super excited for it, and I'm really hoping it ends this story nicely. But really, who knows. You'll just have to wait and see!_

 _Anyway. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as usual. If anyone was wondering about when my other stories are going to be updated, it probably won't be for a while yet. I'm planning on spending a lot of time on Literature in History and getting that one finished too so I can focus on my main three (S &S, APS, and HIMY), and LiH is short and there's really not much substance to that story, so... Yeah, updates on my other stories might still be a while away. One-shots, drabbles, and my other random AUs will still be getting written in between updates, but they'll be slow. _

_Until next time!_

 _\- April_


	20. Epilogue: Going Forward

_And we're finally here!_

* * *

 ** _EPILOGUE - GOING FORWARD_**

* * *

Acceptance.

It was the fifth stage of grieving to some, which was something both Bickslow and Lucy knew a little bit too much about, but to others, it was just a part of everyday life. Constantly, you accept the things that change around you or in your life, and you move on, because that's just what people do: they move on.

Bickslow was used to doing that, too. There were so many times where he'd just had to accept things and try to move on with his life as best he could, and half of the time, it really wasn't easy.

But that was okay. He was okay with that, because sometimes, you have to get through the hard times to get to the really, really great times. Bickslow knew that better than anyone, and he'd honestly thought he'd gotten to the really, really great part of his life when Aurora had been born. But… He wasn't there yet, and that was something he'd had no choice but to accept.

It was just like how when Lucy had been allowed to leave the hospital that night, they'd both had to accept that they weren't able to take their baby home with them just yet. And seeing all of the happy couples and families around them with their new babies had really hurt, because that was what they'd wanted to look like. They'd wanted to be able to walk out those doors and be smiling because they'd have their daughter in their arms, but they hadn't been. That night, they'd only gone home to a painfully silent apartment, almost exactly like the way they'd gone in, and still not quite feeling like parents.

When the doctors said Aurora would have to stay in the hospital for a few days at least, they'd accepted that, too, because as much as they had wanted to take her home, they had known that the hospital was where she had needed to be right then. They'd even accepted that there just wasn't much they could do with their daughter in the hospital. They couldn't hold her for very long, Lucy wasn't really able to feed her – though it really wasn't from a lack of trying – and even then, Aurora had only been a few days old by then, and she really did spend most of that time sleeping.

But they'd had no other choice but to accept that they were having to deprive themselves of even the simplest of parental duties, and when the few days turned into a week and Aurora suddenly got worse, Bickslow had had to grudgingly accept that Lucy didn't really want him anywhere near her most of the time, let alone touching her. And that had been near impossible for Bickslow to live with because he knew how much she was hurting, and when she cried each night and locked herself in Aurora's room that had been ready for her for weeks, all Bickslow wanted to do was hold her and be there for her to remind her that she really wasn't doing it alone.

But he couldn't. And he hated it.

And when the impossibly long days continued to roll by and Aurora's room remained uncomfortably empty, Bickslow began to accept that annoying feeling of uselessness. He could sit there each time they went to the hospital together and he could watch Lucy bond with their daughter, and he could see her smile – the only time she did at all – when she just held her for the limited time she was allowed to, or read random pamphlets to her just because she could, and he could see her just slipping so easily and comfortably into motherhood. Bickslow had loved seeing that happen, too, because he knew how happy she was when she got to spend time with Aurora.

But Bickslow felt almost completely useless when they visited her every single day. The things he could do when they were there, they just weren't enough, and when Aurora was two weeks old, he still didn't really feel like he was a dad.

That was when they started fighting.

Bickslow just couldn't keep going to the hospital each and every morning to see his daughter like that – so small and defenceless even though she'd grown a little, and connected to more machines and monitors that he had ever wanted to see. Because even when he knew she would be okay and that they'd be able to take her home soon like all the doctors and nurses kept telling them, it broke him just a little bit more each time he saw her, and he'd just stopped being able to handle that.

So then Bickslow stopped going and spending as much time as he could there, Lucy only wondered if he was giving up and thinking that none of it was worth it anymore, and when she was barely sleeping or taking care of herself, Bickslow telling her that he only felt like he didn't really need to be there because he felt almost completely useless just made things worse. She could only wonder if it was Bickslow thinking that all of it was a mistake, and then wondering if she was really going to need Bickslow at all. She was tired, stressed, almost always miserable, and the last thing Lucy needed to be worrying about Bickslow.

And when it got dangerously close to the end for them, Bickslow accepted that, too, even when he knew that things had just gotten so out of control so quickly and he wasn't even really sure how they had. But accepting everything in those short few weeks had become his way of coping. It was his way of trying to convince himself that everything really would end up working out, because he was still so terrified of it not, even when he knew he didn't really have any reason to be.

But accepting things was what he needed to do. He had to keep moving forward and trying his best not to let it completely ruin him like it almost already had, because if it did, he knew that he wouldn't be able to be the father to Aurora that he really did want to feel like. He'd be too far gone, and maybe whenever he looked at her when she was healthy again, he'd only see what she looked like in the hospital, and he didn't want to do that. He just wanted it all to be one horrible memory from an even worse time in his life, and he didn't want to get stuck on that.

It was when Aurora was a little over three weeks old that Lucy realised that them fighting and actually considering going their separate ways (to an extent) had been more than ridiculous. She hated that they'd even got to that point because she could honestly say that she never believed they ever would, and over their daughter, no less.

She'd had too much time to think over the last week and the last few days alone, where she really just spent all of her time sitting next to Aurora and doing all that she was allowed to do, or just wandering through the parks and the town when she wasn't allowed to be in the hospital during the rest periods. It had been harder without Bickslow there, and where she'd first hated that he could just leave so easily after coming in with her in the mornings and go and do whatever it was he was doing each day, Lucy had come to accept that maybe, he just really could not be there like she could.

And she got how hard it was. She did. Each day was a struggle and she wished she could be anywhere else with Aurora every time she sat there and listened to the cacophony of beeps coming from each monitor and machine. But Lucy knew that she couldn't be, and she knew that Aurora couldn't be anywhere else, either, so she put up with it because she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't _not_ be there, and by the time she was coming home to the quiet and dark apartment that night, she found herself almost wishing that she could do what Bickslow could. And it made Lucy feel so incredibly guilty that she wished she could actually stand to be away from her daughter, even for just a few hours, really, and it made her feel like an even more horrible mother than she already did.

But none of that really mattered anymore, anyway. Lucy knew that. What mattered was that she kept moving forward and trying her best to get through each and every day, even if they were hard.

When the bedroom light came on, Bickslow didn't even move from where he was somewhat curled in on himself in bed and holding the small white bear with the guild's mark on one of its paws tightly to himself. That was what he did every night, along with twist the leather bracelet with her name and birthday engraved on a metal plate around his wrist – a gift from Caspian, where Lucy had a matching one and Aurora even had her own silver one for when she was out of hospital with just her name on it – so much that it made the skin red. Because even when he couldn't be by Aurora when Lucy could, it didn't mean it was easy. It made him feel guilty, and that really didn't help with his insomnia.

The light was turned back off and the room was dark once again, and Bickslow expected Lucy to just disappear to Aurora's room again and lock herself in there for a few hours or the night, or maybe even just climb into her side of the bed with her back facing his and lie awake in silence, just as he did.

She didn't do that that night, though.

Instead, she only came around to his side and silently pulled the covers back and laid herself down right in front of him with her back against his chest, and just as silently reached back to pull his hand that was still holding the bear over her to lace her fingers through his after setting the teddy bear on the nightstand.

Bickslow was stunned, for lack of a better word. That was the closest they'd been since their daughter had even been born, and then they'd barely even talked in the last week alone. But his confusion over what was going on didn't stop him from shifting backwards towards the middle of the bed so Lucy wasn't right on the edge, and he just as carefully curled around her as she settled back against him. As confused as he was, he'd missed being able to do that – just being able to hold her – and right then, Bickslow was only realising that it was something he'd really needed to be able to do. He could already feel himself calming down and relaxing just that tiny bit.

"What—"

"I miss you," Lucy whispered suddenly.

Bickslow frowned. "I was always here. I never went anywhere, and I really don't want to go anywhere, either," he said softly. "I just… I couldn't…"

"I know, Bicks." She knew that he couldn't be there each and every day, and she knew that it was hard for him, too. That wasn't something he needed to tell her, and it wasn't something she wanted him to apologise for, either. "And that's okay."

"It isn't, though. I… I should be there with Aurora and with you, and I want to be, but I just… I can't be there and keep watching her like that when there's nothing I can do."

"Bickslow," She slowly turned around in his arms and brought her hand up to his cheek, and smiling tenderly – something Bickslow hadn't seen within the walls of that apartment for nearly a month – she whispered, "It's okay now. I promise."

He didn't get it. How was it okay? He hadn't even been to the hospital since the previous morning and had only spent that time putting on a brave face in the guild so no one knew that he and Lucy weren't in the best place, or sulking in bed. His daughter was in hospital and just to add to that feeling of uselessness where he didn't know if he would ever be able to be as good with her as Lucy was, he was hating himself for it, too. "But you… You go there each day, and… And you're good with her and she… She needs you," he mumbled. "She doesn't need me. She's… She's okay without me."

" _Bickslow_ ," Lucy said again. "She _does_ need you."

"But—" He was silenced by Lucy placing her finger over his lips, and he only blinked at the face before him he could only just see in the dark room.

"Will you just be quiet for once?"

Bickslow nodded.

"Good," she smiled again. "Because she really does need you. She might not know it right now, but she does, because you're her dad, and once she's home, she's really going to need you to be there for her because you're the one that's going to have to take care of her and make sure she's happy."

But Bickslow didn't think so. He doubted he'd feel any more useful or even competent once Aurora was home, because in his eyes Lucy was perfect with her – she gave their daughter everything she could possibly ever want or need. And even then, there was no telling when Aurora would be home at all.

"And," Lucy continued when she could see that doubt and that fear on his face, even in the dark, "Even when you don't believe you'll be useful, I _know_ that you will be, because you already are."

"I'm not…"

"But you are," she insisted. "Because you're useful to me. _I_ need you, too, Bickslow. I told you before I wouldn't be able to do this unless I had you by my side, and I really meant that."

And Bickslow knew that she always needed him, just like he always needed her, but he just felt like it was different when it came to Aurora. "You're so good with her though…" he whispered sadly. "And I know that not even you can do everything because she's still sick, but… You're great with her. You don't really need me, either."

Lucy shook her head and she was quietly laughing for a moment, but it brought just the smallest of smiles to Bickslow's face right then, because he hadn't heard that sound in so long. "Has the lack of sleep made you just a little stupid?" she asked. Bickslow didn't even need to answer that though, because she knew it did – they'd both honestly said and done some stupid things over the last week alone. "I have _no_ idea what I'm doing with Aurora, and I have no idea how I'm going to survive her being home with us to be honest, because I'm just going to get so lost and be constantly worried whether I'm doing something right or wrong."

"You'll be fine. I know you will be," he said softly.

"I hope so. Really. But I'm still not as great as you think I am."

"I don't believe that for a second."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm telling you so, okay?" she laughed weakly. "And I'm also telling you that I truly do need you. I'm _always_ going to need you, because I love you so much, and our daughter, too, and there's really no way in hell I'll be able to do anything unless I have you, okay?"

Bickslow nodded reluctantly. "Okay," he whispered. She needed him, even then, and that… Well, Bickslow was finally just coming to accept that.

"And Bickslow?"

"Mm?"

"I know it's hard for you to go to the hospital," she began worriedly. "And I don't blame you for not coming at all today because I really do know how hard it is, but… Can you please come with me tomorrow and stay with me? It's harder when you're not there and… And the doctors said Aurora would be able to come home if she still looks good tomorrow afternoon but if—"

He sat up suddenly and reached over Lucy to turn on the lamp. "Wait, what?"

She could see all of that fear and doubt clearly now, but there was hope there now, she could see it in his eyes as he just waited for her to say what she'd just said, and she couldn't help but smile up at him. That was why Lucy had realised that all of their fighting had been stupid, because it had all just been from them really just needing some sleep and their daughter to be able to come home with them.

She'd just about cried from happiness when the doctors had told her that that afternoon, and she'd wanted to just turn around and hug Bickslow, but he hadn't been there. He hadn't been there to know that their daughter was actually able to breath on her own without any kinds of machines and that her lung had healed from when she'd been a week old and she'd had to be kept in hospital. He hadn't known that she was better because she hadn't seen her since the previous morning when she'd still been a little sick.

And of course, Lucy was still worried that maybe something would go wrong again and Aurora would get worse, but she still hoped that at that time the next night, they'd be able to lie there and have their daughter home with them.

"The doctors said that she'll probably be able to come home tomorrow," she whispered.

"Are you… Are you serious right now?"

She nodded. "I mean, there's still a chance she won't be able to, but… They're confident that we'll be able to bring her home."

Bickslow was only quickly leaning back down and wrapping his arms around the blonde, before pulling her tightly to him as he rolled back towards the middle of the bed. "God, Lucy," He took her face between his hands once she'd seemingly finished detangling her legs from the sheets. "Why didn't you _start_ with that?" he laughed quietly.

"Well, because I… Because I wanted to talk to you first because we haven't even talked for so long," she answered. Although, she could see that she probably should have started with the fact that their daughter would most likely be coming home tomorrow. That was pretty important, and seeing how happy that Bickslow suddenly was only had her smile growing brighter and matching his. "I guess I probably should have started with that though, huh?"

"Yeah, probably," the Seith mage chuckled, and then gently pressed his lips to hers. He'd missed being able to kiss her, too – he'd missed a lot of things like that, and he was really hating that all of that had been lost just because of some silly argument that had gotten so out of hand.

But none of that mattered now. What mattered was that everything felt like it was all coming back to where it belonged, and everything was beginning to feel right again, and just that knowing that there was a _chance_ that their little girl would finally be able to come home to where she belonged was why he felt that way.

And so when Aurora really was finally home that next night, they were almost exactly like the way they'd been the previous night, except that night, they had their daughter asleep, safe and sound in the gap between them as they finally managed to get some actual, somewhat decent sleep themselves.

Well, until Aurora woke up about three hours later, but that was okay. Bickslow had long since accepted that he'd have to forfeit his sleep, and he was fine with that because that was all part of being a parent. And that…

That was the really, really great part of his life that he was finally enjoying, because Aurora was finally home and everyone was where they belonged.

* * *

Lucy sat herself down on a somewhat flat rock and pulled her coat tighter around herself. It was the middle of December, so it was freezing outside, but when she was between towns on her grand adventure (that really wasn't all that grand), she had to cope with spending the odd night outdoors. She didn't mind it, though – she just happened to prefer it a whole lot more when it wasn't winter.

Still, it wasn't like Lucy could just waste those three months. A lot could happen in three months where she just stayed at home with her family and enjoyed the warmth, or more accurately, and as much as she wished she could stay at home with them all the time (sometimes, that is, because Bickslow still got a little annoying sometimes, but she still loved him), she couldn't. She had Aquarius' key to find, and the sooner she found it, the better.

She'd been reluctant to leave at first, and that had just been for a job because she'd needed to give herself a break from Aurora and Bickslow for just one night. It wasn't like she could stay at home forever and pretend she wasn't a guild mage, and if anything, she hadn't really thought it was all that fair that Bickslow be the one to go out on jobs to pay for everything. He always said that he didn't mind the latter – it was just being away from them both that made it hard.

But Bickslow was almost getting used to it by then. Lucy knew that it still wasn't easy for him to leave to take jobs, even when he would only be gone for a few nights at most, but it wasn't as hard as it had been when he'd had to take one right after Aurora had been able to come home from the hospital just to be able to pay her hospital bills. Three-and-a-half weeks in the hospital had not come cheap, or even anything _close_ to cheap.

But… It was where Aurora had had to be. They'd accepted that long ago.

Still though, it was incredibly hard for Lucy to be away from them, but she had to do it. They'd talked a lot about what Lucy would do when it came to Aquarius' key once Aurora was old enough for her to leave every so often, and they'd always said that there would come a time where she'd be able to go out on her own and leave Bickslow with Aurora for a few days. And yeah, their daughter was older now and when Lucy was gone then she wasn't spending all of her time worrying about them because Bickslow really was more than capable of looking after her.

But she still missed them all the time and worried just a little, and she missed them even more since the holidays were just around the corner.

Sighing then as she wrapped her scarf back around her neck and adjusted her coat once more, Lucy reached for her bag and rooted through it until she was pulling out her small communications lacrima. As convenient as Warren's compact version was, Lucy still preferred the crystal ball-like ones sometimes, just because she could see the person on the other end.

It was the fourth night Lucy had been away from home, and like she did each night, she called Bickslow just to check up on them and check in. The previous night she hadn't had a chance to until it had been late so Aurora had already been asleep and Bickslow hadn't wanted to wake her, but this night, Lucy was greeted by the sight of their bathroom filled with bubbles in the lacrima in her hand.

"Hey, you," Lucy giggled as the totem that Bickslow's lacrima was no doubt perched on settled itself in the corner of the bath so she could see Bickslow, whose sweater was almost completely soaked even with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows; ten-month-old Aurora who was happily squealing and playing with the bubbles; and… All of the bubbles. Because there were a lot of bubbles. "Got enough bubbles there?"

Bickslow had been grinning before, just because he really did like bath time, but his grin only got almost impossibly wider once he saw Lucy. Just talking to her without seeing her was fine, but actually being able to see her when they were talking was a whole lot nicer. "Hey! And… You know, probably not. There's never enough bubbles."

"Ba-bub-bub-bub!"

Bickslow only scooped up a handful of bubbles from the bath as Aurora decided to chime in. "Yes, bubbles!" he said happily to the cheerfulness of his daughter. "We like bubbles a lot."

"I feel like I'm missing out now," Lucy laughed.

"That's because you are. But don't worry, once you get back, you can have all the bubbles you want. Speaking of, though…" Bickslow trailed off as he grabbed the bottle of baby shampoo from the row of other soaps and shampoos they used on the shelf, and carefully turned Aurora around. "When _are_ you going to be back?" he asked as he instead just watched with a bored expression as Aurora began to crawl forward in the bath and away from him.

It was because she'd noticed her mother's face sitting in the crystal orb on one of the flying tikis she adored so much (they made bath time even more fun, and they proved to be fun to follow around, though she didn't quite understand why her parents seemed so intent on following _her_ and picking her up sometimes). "Mama!"

Lucy only smiled when she saw Aurora reaching for her with her own wide smile – or, well, she reached for the lacrima. She'd mastered the art of crawling already, and she could pull herself up to stand (which made bath time just a little frustrating since she was more interested in trying to stand on the edge of the bath), and she even knew who Lucy was and who Bickslow was. It had surprised him when they realised that she knew the difference and it wasn't just her random sounds (Bickslow still called it whale-speak, even though Lucy couldn't see it at all), because they'd expected her to be a little slower in the development front since she'd been born early, but she hadn't been so far.

"Hi, sweetie," Lucy said softly. Oh, if only she could actually reach out and pick her up. But she couldn't. She could see that Aurora was trying to reach for her now that the _non-human_ baby she was sitting on had moved lower and was level with her, and she could see how confused Aurora was getting because she was there, but it wasn't her face she was touching but instead it was the cold glass of the lacrima and it was the first time she'd ever seen that. As Aurora turned to look to Bickslow, he only shrugged and gently sat her back down in front of him and Lucy said, "And, um… I'm probably going to start heading home in the morning, so I'll probably be back tomorrow night or the day after."

"Where are you now?" Bickslow asked as he gently massaged the soap into the soft blue strands that sat atop her head – she'd been born with black hair, actually, or at least it had looked black, but once it had started growing out again, it had turned the same shade as Bickslow's. Lucy didn't understand it since the roots still remained the same shade that was too dark to really be classified as the same cobalt that Bickslow's was, but neither did Bickslow.

"Just outside of Malba City, I think it's called."

"Huh. Never heard of it."

"It's really pretty," Lucy said. "There's lots of trees and flowers and there's so many beautiful gardens and parks. It's a bit like Crocus, I guess, but… Smaller."

"Sounds nice," the Seith mage mused. He leant around the infant who was back to staring down at the bubbles that filled the bath up to her stomach and was watching the other four babies that kept ducking down and hiding beneath them, and smiled down at her again. "We should go visit one day, shouldn't we?" When she only squealed, Bickslow rolled his eyes and said, "I really wish you would just hurry up and start talking properly. I still don't understand this whale language you seem so fond of."

"Bickslow, it's not whale."

"But it really is. I mean, listen to her! It's whale. She even has a shirt that says so."

"It's really not whale," Lucy giggled over their daughter's squealing that was most definitely not its own language – or at the very least it wasn't _whale_. But then Aurora was starting to cough, and then Lucy was most definitely not laughing at that, and Bickslow was finishing rinsing her off before lifting her out of the bath. "Is she still not better yet?"

Aurora had been a little sick before Lucy had left, but Bickslow had practically had to push her out the door to get her to leave. It was just a cold, and that was something Bickslow could deal with on his own. Plus, he knew how much finding Aquarius' key meant to Lucy and he knew that she was constantly worrying about someone else finding it before she did, so of course he was completely behind her leaving every now and then and whenever she could to go and find it.

He really didn't mind it, but it most definitely had something to do with the fact that he got to have Aurora all to herself. He was an Aurora hog.

"Ah, no…" Bickslow mumbled. The tiki with the lacrima on it followed him into Aurora's room and hovered in front of him as he sat down on the white lounge that was forever laden with pillows with his back against the armrest, and set Aurora who was all bundled up in the bright yellow towel down on his lap. He didn't really need to look up to know that Lucy was either pouting, scowling and glaring at him like she wanted to murder him, or looking like she was going to die from worrying too much. Or all of them, which was more likely. "I mean, I took her to see her doctor earlier today just because I wasn't sure if _I_ needed to freak out yet…"

"And…?" Lucy pressed.

" _And_ … He said it wasn't anything to worry about yet, but if she got any worse then I'd need to take her back and then she'd probably get admitted to the hospital for a few days to be treated…"

"But… But you said it was just a cold! You told me to—"

"And I thought it was just a cold," Bickslow said quickly as he got up, holding Aurora in one arm and grabbing her pyjamas in the other. "It still could _just_ be a cold, too, but… It might not be, either."

"Then what?"

Bickslow shrugged. He did have to admit it was just a little weird talking about how their ten-month-old daughter could very possibly end up in hospital again for a few more days while making faces at her – that was just a must when it came to dressing her, just like playing with her toes was, or kissing her nose, which was something he was very pleased to know she enjoyed just as much as her mother did. "Not sure," he admitted. "He thinks that it might be some kind of viral infection if she does end up getting worse. Like, the airways in her lungs get inflamed, I think he said."

It was a more than worrying thought knowing that their daughter could end up back in hospital because there was something wrong with her lungs _again_. But she also might not, which Lucy was choosing to focus on, because she really could not let herself be consumed by her anxiety when she was that far away from home. So she only nodded, smiled, and continued to wave to Aurora when she pointed up to the lacrima and kept telling Bickslow that she was there. "Well, I'll try to get home as soon as I can."

After putting Aurora to bed, which had strangely involved a lot of saying 'bye' since she'd apparently (and surprisingly) learned how to say that, too, and leaving her to sleep with the babies watching over her like they always did and the giant pink ladybug in the corner of the crib (Bickslow had gotten fed up with it at one point after Lucy had sleepily hit him in the face with it when they'd both been somewhat asleep, and so it had been donated to Aurora when she'd been six months old, though she'd already been made quite familiar with the ladybug since she'd come home from the hospital because it made the perfect nursing pillow of sorts for Lucy), Bickslow only ventured out to the kitchen to get his own dinner organised, and with the lacrima sitting on the bench, their conversation once again drifted back to Lucy's adventure.

"So," Bickslow turned away from the stove to lean against the counter and folde his arms across his chest. "If you're going to start heading back tomorrow, I take it you didn't get any closer to finding her key?"

Lucy shook her head. "I think I'm heading in the right direction…" It was how she'd ended up in Malba City in the first place: she'd just had a feeling that it was somewhere in that direction and she just kept following that feeling. "But no, I didn't."

"Well, you will eventually. I know you will."

"I hope so," she whispered – Bickslow's unwavering faith that she would seemed to be the only thing that kept her going, really. "I just wish it wasn't going to take this long. I miss my babies."

He arched an eyebrow at the lacrima on the counter. "Plural, now?"

Lucy shrugged. "Well, there's Aurora, and then there's you…"

"Right," he scoffed, and he only scratched the back of his head as he turned back to the stove for a moment. "But, um… When was it you said you'd be home?"

"I'll say the day after the tomorrow at the latest. I'm hoping for tomorrow night since I'll be able to catch the trains coming back."

He nodded. "Right, okay…"

Lucy hesitated when she could see that something was… off. Something didn't sit right with her right then, because Bickslow had gotten unusually quiet very quickly. It wasn't like their calls when she was out searching for Aquarius' key were always easy, because they were just as hard as being away from them both, so it wasn't out of the ordinary for Bickslow to be just a little quieter than usual or seem a little tense. But it was different then. _Maybe it's because of Aurora._ "…Or if I leave now, I could probably be back by tomorrow afternoon," she added slowly.

"No, no. You don't have to do that. No, you should… You should get some rest tonight and just leave in the morning like you said earlier," Bickslow mumbled.

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong then?" she asked.

"Nothing is wrong."

Lucy rolled her eyes at the stubborn Seith mage. "Bickslow, I don't need to _physically_ be in the same room as you to know when something is wrong," she reminded him. "Just tell me. Please?"

Bickslow only shook his head. "I promise you, nothing's wrong." But then he paused as he turned back to the pot he had on the stovetop, and even when Lucy was quite possibly on the other side of Fiore – he had no idea where the town she was in actually was – he knew she was watching him intently through the lacrima. "I just… I wanted to talk to you about something when you got back, and you just reminded me of it," he admitted quietly before adding in afterthought, "Though maybe now isn't the right time to bring it up…"

"Hm? What about?'

He shook his head again. "It doesn't matter." Well, it did matter, but not right then. He could only give her an embarrassed smile as he turned back to lean against the counter, and he said, "Besides, it's not exactly something we should talk about like _this_."

Lucy could honestly say that she had absolutely no idea what it was Bickslow apparently wanted to talk to her about, though she was more than a little curious. She knew Bickslow well enough to know that he wasn't going to cave on telling her just yet, though. She would have to wait. "If you say so," she hummed.

And with that, they only continued to tell each other all about their day and anything else that came to mind, right up until Lucy ended up falling asleep in the cosy tent made from Aries' bright pink wool that she'd retreated into halfway through their conversation, and after making Bickslow promise to have a bubble bath waiting her for when she got home.

* * *

Bickslow still hated going out on jobs, but by that point in his life, he was sure he was always going to hate going out on jobs, because it wasn't like he could stop. He was a guild mage, and that was what guild mages did. He'd accepted that it was just something he was going to have to find a way to get over. When that would be, though, he had no idea.

It made coming home nice, though. Coming home was the best part of taking jobs (apart from the fact that it paid the bills and let them buy really nice things they they – _Bickslow_ – didn't really need) because it meant he got to be back with Aurora again. And Lucy, of course. But Aurora was important.

So when Bickslow got home that night, he was, as usual, more than happy to leave the setting sun behind him on the quiet street and walk through the front door that Lucy had apparently decided to paint black at some point over the last three days. _Odd_.

As soon as he was into the kitchen where Lucy was getting dinner ready, Aurora was getting up from the window seat and dropping the book she'd been 'reading' to rush over to him, and of course, he only picked her up just as quickly as she'd run over to him. "Daddy, I missed you!" the two-and-a-half-year-old said happily. Though honestly, he sometimes forgot she was still that young.

She'd been ahead with almost everything after she'd started actually talking (Bickslow had been so glad when she'd started moving on from the whale speak) and walking. She talked a lot, or at least it was more than what some were capable of, and she loved having conversations with them or the babies, though sometimes it was a case where they just let her prattle on because sometimes she just made no sense (though most of the time she did), and she absolutely loved her books. She didn't quite know how to read though, and she was still learning the alphabet, strangely, but she still liked learning as much as she could, at least, so they let her go off with it on her own every now and then. It was clear to Bickslow that Aurora had gotten Lucy's brains, but sometimes, he kind of wished she wasn't so smart.

Was it too much to ask that she just stay little forever and not be so independent already? And if he had to be perfectly honest, he did kind of miss the whale speak…

Just a little.

"Oh, well I missed you too," he replied, though he was just a little surprised because it was the first time Aurora had ever said she'd missed him. He'd honestly been beginning to think she didn't when he was gone, what, with Lucy being there with her… "But aren't you forgetting something?"

Aurora stared at him as he walked around to where Lucy was behind the counter, and then he tapped his cheek with his finger and her face lit up with realisation before she quickly gave him his 'returning home' kiss that he'd been getting for far too long (though they'd grown much more precise over the years and less… wet).

"Ah, much better. Thank you, Aurora."

She only giggled and laid her head on his shoulder.

"But as for you…" he murmured as reached for Lucy's cheek to turn her towards him, then gently pressed his lips to hers. "I missed you as well."

"I missed you, too," Lucy whispered, and let Bickslow quickly kiss her again, but it was only _quickly_ because Aurora was grabbing each of their faces and was apparently set on trying to separate them. Bickslow only rolled his eyes, because it wasn't the first time she had, but Lucy laughed and poked her nose before she turned her attention back to the chopping board in front of her. "Fine then, Little Miss Jealous. He's _all_ yours."

As Aurora had put it three months earlier, Bickslow was hers. Not Lucy's. He was _her_ knight in shining armour, and, well, as much as Lucy found herself just a little bit jealous of their daughter because she didn't really like having to share her _doctor_ in shining armour, she still thought it was cute.

"Wait, is something burning?"

Lucy looked back up at Bickslow's question, and then her eyes went wide as she spun around and stared at the oven next to the pantry that she was still trying to figure out in their new house (they'd needed the space), even though they'd been there for over six months by that point. "Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no!"

Bickslow chuckled as he got out of the way of the blonde, taking Aurora over to the edge of the room while Lucy fanned the smoke (after she'd spent a few days in the hospital when she'd been ten-months-old, they'd found out she was asthmatic, and with her lungs still not quite being as strong as they should be, they needed to make sure she was kept away from certain things) with the mitts after opening the oven. He set Aurora down then quietly said, "Why don't you go play with the babies in the lounge room for a little while?" She only nodded and followed the five tikis into the other room happily, and once she was gone and he could only just hear her telling them off for something (she was incredibly bossy sometimes), he went around to the counter once again and tried to peek at what Lucy was pulling out of the oven and asked, slightly amused, "So what is it you were cooking? Or… _Trying_ to cook, I should so say."

"A roast," she admitted miserably. "Roast chicken."

"A roast, huh? What made you want to do that?" He really did find it amusing that she'd burnt it even though he probably shouldn't, but he had to give credit where it was due. She wasn't anywhere near as horrible at cooking as she had been three years earlier, but only because he happened to be a very good teacher, but she still wasn't a goddess in the kitchen.

In a whole lot of other things, she was, yes, but… Most definitely not in the kitchen. The kitchen was his domain, and when they'd decided to move, he'd most definitely pushed them getting a house with a nicer kitchen that had plenty of room for him – and Aurora, because Aurora liked to 'help' – to make mess in.

"Well, I knew you were going to be home tonight, and I wanted to make something nice since you always spoil _me_ whenever I get back from a job or looking for Aquarius' key…"

He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder, and stared down at what was supposed to have been a roast. "Yeah, but you don't need to attempt to cook a roast to spoil me. You do that enough by putting up with me."

"Mm, don't remind me how much I want to strangle you half the time."

"But you don't because you still love me too much, and I'm like, _the_ best dad on this planet."

"That I do." She couldn't help but smile when he decided to slip the last part in just a little sneakily. He couldn't help himself sometimes.

"Now," He kissed her cheek then pulled away from her suddenly, and said, "How about you get rid of this, because honestly, if it wasn't already dead before, it most definitely is now, and after I shower, we go out for dinner?"

Lucy sighed as she tipped the roast tray into the bin and watched the burnt remnants fall into the trash. She tried, and had most obviously failed. "That sounds like a good idea," she mumbled.

It was as Bickslow was making his way into the hall and down to the bedroom that Aurora suddenly came running down the hall, and he stopped and stared down at the blue-haired girl that was hugging him and shaking her head. "Hey… Hey, Aurora… What's wrong?" It was just a bit difficult to get her to actually let go of him just so he could crouch down in front of her and get on her level, but once he had, she instantly hid herself beneath his arm and under his cloak he'd yet to take off.

The hiding-under-cloak thing wasn't new – she was shy around most people, so even when they went to the guild, she'd retreat under his cloak if he was wearing it and pretend to be invisible, or she'd just run to either parent for a hug and try to hide that way.

But Bickslow didn't really know why she was doing it _then_ , because it wasn't like she was shy around them. It was a very rare occurrence for Aurora to want to hide when she was at home, and even then, she only did if it was just part of a game.

Lucy only curiously stuck her head around the archway as she dried her hands with a towel. She gave Bickslow a look as if to say, _'what the hell is going on?'_ But he couldn't even answer that. He just had no idea and all he could do was shrug.

He slowly lifted up the cloak to peek at the girl who had her arms wrapped around him, but she only reached up and tugged it back down again so she couldn't be seen. _Alright then._ If Aurora was going to be like that, there was only one solution to getting her to tell him what was wrong. So swiftly, he undid the clasp and sat himself down on the ground with his legs crossed, pulled Aurora into his lap so she was still hiding, and threw the cloak over the top of both of them. Or really, it was over her and over his head, but it was dark and it was warm, and she was most definitely hiding.

Well, sort of.

"Now, come on," Bickslow said softly. "Tell Daddy what's wrong."

"Babies scary," Aurora mumbled.

"Hm? The babies are scary? But you love the babies. How are they scary?"

"They were glowing and they scary."

Lucy was the one who froze when she heard Aurora, not Bickslow. They both knew that the babies weren't exactly all that aware of their boundaries when it came to playing with people which is what they did best, but they also knew that Aurora was different to them. They were almost sure the reason she was so shy and never really liked going to any playgroups or being around any other children her age was _because_ of the babies. She'd grown up with them mostly, not really any other kids, so the babies were her friends. Bickslow and Lucy knew it was probably a bit of a mistake on their part, not having her be around other children when she'd been younger, but they weren't worrying about it too much.

Bickslow's argument was that they'd both been kids who had grown up pretty much on their own and without any other people their age around them, and they'd turned out just fine. Well… Mostly.

But she still had the guild, too… It was just other kids she wasn't really that great with, so they were just working on that slowly and were letting the babies stay as her best friends for now.

Bickslow wasn't even worried that the babies had crossed a boundary they shouldn't have because they knew they wouldn't ever do that – they liked to play, sure, and when it came to _him_ they mostly weren't all that gentle. But with Aurora, they were just that. She didn't even know what they were capable of – what _he_ was capable of – and he'd wanted it to stay that way for at least a little while longer…

Not everything goes to plan though.

So it was after he wondered how he was going to approach the subject – because he really hadn't thought he'd have to, at least not for a while – that he finally asked, "Were they green?"

"Uh-huh."

One of the five totems flew down into the hall and he caught it in his hand before bringing it under the cloak. "Aurora, sweetie, I need you to look up now, okay?"

She nodded and hesitantly lifted her head from his shoulder and opened her eyes. But as soon as she saw the faint green glow just off to the side in the otherwise dark enclosure she was in, she whimpered and hid her face again. "I don't wanna," she sniffled.

"Was it glowing again?"

"Uh-huh."

Bickslow sighed and let the wooden doll wriggle out of his grasp. He let Aurora calm down for a minute and waited until the hall was quiet once again before he carefully pushed the cloak back so it was just acting as a blanket over the two of them. "Aurora, I need you to look up again, and I want you to look at me this time, okay? Can you do that?" he asked softly.

It took her a moment, but she nodded again and slowly lifted her head. She could see the baby hovering just behind him with its strange green glow, and all she wanted to do was hide under the warm cloak again because it frightened her, but she couldn't. She had to be a big girl, and it didn't really help that Bickslow was holding her face gently between his hands so she couldn't hide as much as she wanted to.

He only watched as she glanced to the floating totem just behind him every now and then, and sighed quietly when he could just make out the warm golden glow in her deep coffee eyes. He'd already known from the minute she'd said the babies had been glowing, but seeing her eyes glow in response to it – he knew that the babies being close to her were bringing that out because that was how it started – only confirmed it. He'd just really been hoping to avoid seeing that for his entire life, or at the very least a few more years.

Bickslow had the last totem go down to their bedroom with the other four to sit on the shelf they'd been given. He knew he'd probably have to remind them later that Aurora really wasn't scared of them, and that it was all just new to her. But, that was later. For now, though, he had to tell Aurora that she didn't have anything to worry about. So he got up from where he was sitting on the floor in the hall with a groan, and then sat down on the lounge in the living room with Aurora still on his lap and still hiding beneath his cloak, despite the fact that it was summer.

He looked down to her head resting on his shoulder and gently said, "You don't need to be scared of them, Aurora."

"But they're weird now…" she mumbled.

"I know they are, but it's nothing to be scared of. Do you know why?"

She shook her head.

"Because it means you're a mage just like Daddy is."

"It does?" Aurora whispered when she looked up suddenly. The small smile she had on her lips only had Bickslow smiling back as Lucy caught a tear that slid down her cheek, and turned back to the kitchen to finish cleaning up the mess she'd made.

"Yup," Bickslow answered. "You can see souls just like I can, so that's why the babies were glowing, because they're souls."

"And… And will I always see them?"

Bickslow shook his head. "Not unless you want to, because I'm going to teach you _all_ about Seith magic and you're going to learn how to control it, too, because that's important, okay?" He could tell his daughter that she was essentially a glorified puppeteer, but he chose not to. That, he could tell her later, maybe once she was a little calmer. "But… For tonight, how about we just leave the babies alone so they don't scare you again, and then maybe tomorrow, if you want me to—"

"Oh, please, Daddy!" Aurora said quickly as she sat up suddenly

"You didn't even let me finish what I was saying!"

"Oh, but…"

He rolled his eyes as she seemed to deflate some. "So you want me to start teaching you about Seith magic tomorrow then?" he asked, even though he was pretty sure that was what she wanted. He wasn't quite sure if she liked her excitement, though.

"Uh-huh!"

"Well, if you insist…"

It was only later that night once they'd gotten home from dinner and he'd put Aurora to bed _without_ the babies staying with her like they usually did, that Bickslow let the walls he'd put up for Aurora that evening all come crumbling down. He'd seemed fine with it, sure, but the truth was that he wasn't really sure if he was.

He'd _really_ been hoping that Aurora hadn't been passed on that particular trait, but only because he didn't really know how he would teach her. No one had taught him because no one had been able to, but Aurora had someone to help her – she had _him_. He just didn't know how to or how things would turn out.

And even then… It only meant that she was like him, and that still terrified him even though he knew he didn't really have to be.

"So…" Lucy pulled the bathroom door closed after she dropped her towels into the hamper, then slowly padded over to bed where the Seith mage sat with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, and she climbed up onto the edge to sit on his lap with her knees on either side of him. "Aurora's a Seith mage then?"

He sighed as Lucy pulled his arms down so she could wrap her own around his shoulders. "Apparently, yeah," he mumbled.

"Are you okay?"

Bickslow shrugged as he laid back, bringing Lucy down with him (because how could he not? Plus, he was comfortable, and so was she). "I guess so. I kinda wish she wasn't though, to be honest, but it's not like there's anything we can do about that now…"

"I don't mind it. I told you years ago I'd _gladly_ have baby Seith mages with you." They'd been together for nearly four years at that point, but she most definitely had not changed her stance on having her children be Seith mages. She quite liked Aurora having Bickslow's magic, and then if and when they decided to have another baby (though it really was an _if_ , because Lucy wasn't _quite_ sure if she wanted to, but Bickslow had already expressed his desire for another baby before Aurora had even turned one), she'd still be over the moon if they got his magic, too.

"Well, you got one. My bad."

"Oh, shush, you," Lucy laughed quietly. "But I mean it. Are you going to be okay? You know, are you going to be _able_ to teach her?"

He didn't know how to, but yeah. He'd be able to, because he knew that everything always worked out in the end. This was no different. Nodding, he whispered, "Yeah, I'll be able to. But I don't exactly know how much I'll be able to teach her because I don't know whether she'll be able to understand some of it."

Lucy slid off to the side and propped herself up on her elbow. True, Aurora was their genius baby, but even Lucy knew that there were some (a lot) things a not yet three-year-old could understand. "I suppose you have a point, and I guess now that it's been brought up, I never really expected her to show any signs of any type of magic for a few years yet. How old were you when it happened for you?"

"Five? Six, maybe? Somewhere around there, I think. But if you think about it, we really shouldn't be that surprised that she developed her magic early, too, since she's been ahead with pretty much everything else…"

"I guess," Lucy sighed wistfully before adding just as quietly, "You know, sometimes I almost wish she hadn't been? She just… She used to be so small! And she's already so big! And she's so… So independent now and I feel like she doesn't even need me anymore."

"Well… I miss her being tiny, too, but you know we could—"

Lucy laughed as she suddenly sat up and put her hand over his mouth. "Nuh-uh. Nice try, Bicks, but we're still not having this conversation." Oh no. Definitely not. Besides, she had other things to do… Like finish cleaning up the kitchen from earlier. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a kitchen to finish cleaning."

Bickslow only watched the blonde escape out into the hall and yet again completely shut down the conversation he'd only been wanting to _seriously_ have for the last nearly two years. But that was okay. He could wait for as long as he needed to.

He already had something else on his mind by the time he was getting off the bed to follow his still-fiancée down the hall, because it was only just occurring to him that the only room that they'd yet to christen in their new house in the six months they'd lived there was in fact his favourite (well, second favourite) room of them all: the kitchen.

* * *

"I hope there's a town nearby," Lucy mused as she walked alongside her recently turned four-year-old daughter, Aurora's hand in hers and their arms swinging idly between them. "We should be at least getting close to one. What do you think, Aurora?"

Aurora hummed as she turned to look at their surroundings, but she could only see the trees on one side and on the other side of the train tracks they were walking along, and then her father walking slowly behind them on the dirt path. She knew they'd been walking for a while because she was getting tired again, and she knew that they hadn't passed through a town for the last two days, so they _had_ to be getting close to one. That was just the _logical_ thing, naturally.

She also really hoped there was a town nearby, too, because she really wanted ice cream.

"I think so, Mama," she replied brightly.

Lucy looked behind them to the Seith mage. "And what do you think? Do you think we're close?"

Bickslow looked up suddenly when he realised Lucy was talking to him instead of Aurora. "Huh?" He hadn't really been paying all that much attention to them at all since most of what they talked about when they were walking from one town to the next was Lucy just satiating Aurora's endless curiosity about absolutely everything. He helped too, of course, because when they were gone for two, sometimes three or even four weeks at a time because they were all out looking for Aquarius' key (they hadn't started until Aurora had been nearly four, but even that they'd wanted to put off), it gave them plenty of opportunities to teach her about the world and everything else in it.

They were still working on her magic, too – or at least Bickslow was. She'd started being able to see _their_ souls and not just the babies' forms not too long after her magic had started developing in the first place, and at four, just a few months earlier, she'd managed to get some kind of control over her eyes, which had honestly just blown Bickslow out of the water. He had downright refused teaching her about her Figure Eyes yet, though – that could wait at least a few more years – but the rest of it, being able to see someone's soul and having her learn how to control that ability was fine, because she'd clearly been ready to understand that.

And even when they'd decided that Aurora was _just_ old enough to come with them so Bickslow could actually go with Lucy, too, like he'd always said he'd wanted to do, he didn't stop teaching her. When they were mostly travelling the country by foot and they had a four-year-old who got tired incredibly easily if she was being active because of the problems she'd always had with her lungs (though she was still a happy little girl. She just happened to get tuckered out faster than she should have), they spent a lot of time just resting and taking breaks. It wasn't an inconvenience to them, though. Not even in a million years would it be an inconvenience.

But over the last few days… Bickslow hadn't been able to help become just a little distant, and for the first time, he hadn't really liked where Lucy had been leading them. He'd really just followed her up until that point because she was the only one who knew where they needed to go (or, well, she wasn't certain since she was really just following a feeling, but she'd been following that same feeling for years and she still claimed they were heading in the right direction) and it was how they'd gotten to the far north of Fiore near the border and near the mountain ranges in the first place, because each time she or they had gone out, they'd been getting farther and farther away from from Magnolia.

It was just that this time, it was different, and he didn't really want to let Lucy know that there was anything wrong, and it worried him that he really might have to.

"I asked if you thought we were close to another town," Lucy repeated. "You know, so we can stay a night or two at an inn and maybe just relax for a couple days?"

"Oh. Right, um… Yeah… There, ah… There should be one close by… Maybe… I don't know…" he mumbled. _Liar. You know exactly where the closest town is._ He just hoped he wouldn't have to go _through_ it, let alone stay in it. "But, hey… Baby," he began again before she could even question what was wrong, because he knew she was wondering (and it wasn't like he was very good at hiding it when his visor was tucked away in his rucksack). "Are you sure you want to keep heading this direction? Like, don't you maybe want to head west? Or… Or maybe east?"

"Of course I am. Maybe if we don't find anything this way we can try that." Lucy looked down to Aurora again with a great big smile and asked, "How does that sound?"

She nodded. "Mama has the good plans!"

Lucy smirked over her shoulder again. "See? I have the good plans."

"Yup… You sure do…" Bickslow mumbled. So maybe he really was just going to have to put up with it. There was still a chance they'd be able to avoid the small town that was just a little farther north-northeast. There was one in the west that he wouldn't be against Lucy wanting to pass through or stay in for a few days (as much as Aries' wool was comfortable and made the best beds, he missed an actual bed most of the time when they were out on the hunt for Aquarius' key); it was just his old hometown he wanted to avoid like the plague, just like how he wanted to avoid Lucy finding out that that was where they were essentially headed.

He'd never seen the point in telling her where he'd grown up, and she'd never asked so that part of his life he'd gladly kept secret.

"Mama, there's something up there," Aurora suddenly said, pointing to what Lucy could just make out as a small crossing for the tracks with what looked to be a map of some sort, just a couple hundred metres up ahead.

"Oh, you're right! Wanna go check it out?"

"Uh-huh!"

"I'll race you—" But just like that, the blue-haired girl with the short pigtails was running off and Lucy was, of course, left chasing after her and trying not to laugh too much. "Don't get too close to the tracks!"

But Bickslow didn't chase after them like he would have if they'd been anywhere else. He really wasn't in any kind of rush to go to where they were running towards, but he had no choice but to follow them right now, so he just did so as slowly as he could possibly manage.

By the time he got there, Lucy was busy studying the large map of the area on the board, and Aurora was walking around in circles and staring at the ground for some reason. But then Bickslow just stood there and kept flexing his hands or wringing them together, because all he wanted to do was just try and wrap his arms around himself and close his eyes to stop himself from seeing it all happen all over again.

The worst part about it, though, was that it wasn't Dallas standing there in front of him anymore. It was his daughter, and he just couldn't stop seeing that train, and he couldn't move, either…

"So… There's a town just on the other side of the tracks, just a few kilometres west," Lucy said absentmindedly as she continued to study the map. "And then there's another one on this side that's closer to us, and that's just a bit farther north… North, north-east, actually."

Bickslow didn't hear her – or maybe he was just ignoring her – because he was too busy watching Aurora still. Or, more accurately, he was looking between the four-year-old who was still spinning around and giggling at how she was almost losing her balance, and the train that had just rounded the bend as far as his eyes could see. He couldn't do that again. He just couldn't.

"H-Hey, Aurora… Don't be silly, now…" he mumbled, suddenly aware of how dry his throat felt. "Don't play near the tracks. Come back over here."

"But it's fun!"

"I know it is but… But it's not safe there. Come on, just come back over here now." Somewhere in his mind he knew that he still had time, because the train was still hundreds of metres away and she wasn't even that close to the tracks, but it was still way too close for comfort.

But Aurora just ignored him after that and kept spinning around, and Lucy kept staring at the map and trying to figure out where the best place for them to go next would be, and the train kept coming, and Bickslow…

Bickslow couldn't move.

Again.

He was stuck standing in the same spot he had fourteen years earlier, staring at the same place and seeing it happen all over again. Everything was so different and yet it felt the same as it had back then.

But then something seemed to click and he wasn't frozen in place anymore; he wasn't feeling utterly useless and at a loss for what to do. Because things were different – _everything_ was different. And Aurora was just a kid still (though sometimes, he wondered if she knew that herself) so she didn't really understand the gravity of the situation, but that was okay, because it was his job to keep her safe and _make_ her understand.

The train still wasn't anywhere near them, and the Aurora still wasn't that close to the tracks, but it was still too close for Bickslow. So he just stepped forward and quickly scooped her up before setting her down on an old wooden bench near the map – _far_ away from the tracks. "Aurora, I told you not to play near the tracks, and you're supposed to listen to me when I tell you to do something, remember?" he scolded her mildly. It wasn't like he was going to yell, because he just wasn't the type of parent that could, and it still wasn't exactly something that she needed to be yelled at for...

But he still kept seeing that train from fourteen years earlier and he could still see that place where Dallas had once been standing. He couldn't do that with Aurora, too.

Aurora looked down and nodded. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she whispered.

"It's—" He stopped himself abruptly and flinched when he heard the train's horn and felt the ground he was kneeling on just barely shake from it as it got nearer and eventually came past. It was only then that Lucy was realising that something else was off and he wasn't just worried about Aurora having gotten a little too close to the tracks before the train had come past – she did have to admit she felt horrible for not noticing herself until Bickslow had had to go and pick her up – but she didn't have a chance to ask about it before Bickslow was looking up to give their daughter a forced but small smile. "It's fine," he said softly, wrapping his arms around the girl to pull her into a hug from where she stood on the bench. "Just be careful and listen to me the _first_ time next time."

Lucy watched Bickslow slowly step back and begin to pace a little just where the small clearing for the map and rest point point met the dense forest. Turning to Aurora who only sat on the bench kicking her feet out in front of her, Lucy reached into the bag that was sitting on the bench beside her and pulled out the handcrafted book, _So You Want to Be a Badass Seith Mage, Vol. 4 (Because You Are Four Now!)_ – something Bickslow had made her for her fourth birthday as a bit of a joke even though it was strangely useful and she loved reading it – and then knelt down in front of Aurora to hand it to her. "Here, why don't you sit here for a little bit and read this? Do you remember what part you were reading last?" she beamed.

Aurora nodded quickly. "Colours of souls!" she answered as happily as she always did.

"Ooh, that sounds interesting! Tell me what you learn later?"

"If you want me to."

"Well, _of course_ I want you to!" She already knew because Bickslow had told her when she'd seen him working on it, but still – it was always nice finding out what Aurora could learn on her own just from a very bright and colourful book with lots and lots of pictures of the babies. "But…" Lucy stood up again and put her hands on the girl's cheeks to tilt her face up to look at her, and continued, "You have to sit right here, okay? I don't want you moving from this bench at all. If I find out your feet have touched the ground…"

It was tempting, because her parents only threatened her with lots of tickles if she did something they didn't want her to do, but she wouldn't. She wanted to read with the babies sitting next to her, and Pippi was already sitting on her shoulder like it always did anyway. So she shook her head. "Sitting right here, Mama," she said, nodding once.

Lucy kissed her forehead. "Good girl. Keep the babies company."

So with Aurora already flicking the cardstock pages in her book and beginning to read aloud to the babies who were helping her with the words she hadn't quite gotten (honestly, Lucy hadn't even known what the babies were actually capable of until they'd basically started raising Aurora themselves), Lucy headed over to Bickslow to finally see what was bothering him.

She caught his hands between hers when she stepped in front of him, and not holding them tightly she could feel that they were just barely shaking. "Bickslow, what's wrong?" she asked softly.

In hindsight, Bickslow was realising he probably should have told Lucy just where her gut instinct happened to be leading them through. He told her everything because he never had a reason _not_ to tell her something, and he knew that the situation right then was no different. He had to tell her because she needed to know, even if it was something he'd honestly thought would never ever happen. "Do you, um… Do you remember when we went to Akane like, five years ago? And I… I told you all of that stuff about my parents, and… And Dallas?" he asked in turn, though his voice was much shakier than he'd anticipated and Lucy most definitely caught it.

She nodded. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, uh… It was… It was here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" He had to swallow the lump in the throat as he pulled his hand free just to point through the forest and to a small path that he'd trekked hundreds of times growing up that led to the small town he'd lived in. "This was where I lived before I moved with Caspian," he explained.

"Oh no…" Realisation seemed to hit Lucy then like a… Well, ironically, a train.

"And uh… Dallas was, um… Here."

Lucy quickly let go of his hands and looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down slightly so she could rest her chin on his shoulder and he could with her. "I'm so, so sorry, Bicks…" she whispered. She knew that Bickslow hadn't gone back to where he'd grown up since he'd left with Caspian, and she knew that he'd left relatively soon after it had all happened – from Dallas dying to Bickslow hurting himself – so she could only assume that it was Bickslow's first time coming back to where it had all happened. She could honestly say right then that she had no idea how Bickslow was feeling, and she didn't really want to know what he felt right then, either, because she knew that he was in pain right then; she could see that. "You should have told me earlier. We could have avoided passing through here so you wouldn't have to come back."

Bickslow shrugged. "I didn't want to tell you."

"I figured as much, but you still should have. I wouldn't have come anywhere _near_ here if I'd known."

He lifted his head to rest his forehead on hers, and the corners of his mouth lifted up into a small smile for the barest of moments. "I know you wouldn't have, but you obviously needed to," he said. "I told you I'd follow you to the ends of the earth when it comes to finding Aquarius' key, and I'm not going to get in the way of you getting her back. I wasn't going to tell you that there was a chance we'd get so far north that we'd pass through here, because that's just not fair. You'd avoid it like that particular conversation that I still really want to have one day—"

"Hey, come on, you know I'm not avoiding it…" Lucy laughed weakly. Well, she kind of was. For now, anyway.

"You are, but that's okay," he smirked. "But you'd avoid coming through here if you had known, and… And what if Aquarius' key is here? Or near here? _You're_ the one she belonged to, and _you're_ the one leading us right now. I'm just following you and trying to keep our daughter safe."

"I know you are. But um… You know, you don't have to follow me if you don't want to."

"I do want to, though."

"But I… I want to go through your old town. That's just… That's just where I feel like I need to go right now, you know?"

Bickslow shrugged and let out a shaky breath. "Okay then."

But Lucy continued, "So you can take Aurora to the town on the other side of the tracks, and… And you can stay there for tonight or something and I can come and find you tomorrow or in a couple days if I don't find anything near the one that's just up here…"

"I'm not leaving you."

"But if you follow me, you'll have to go back to your old hometown…"

"I know that."

"Isn't that going to be hard for you, though?" Lucy asked worriedly. She didn't want Bickslow coming with her if that was the case. She could pass through there on her own, look around for a couple of days and meet Bickslow and Aurora in another town and then if north was the direction she still felt she needed to go, they could find another way to get there that would allow them to bypass his old town. "I mean… Even being _here_ is difficult for you, and I know that it's because you saw Dallas die here, but… I don't want to make things any more difficult for you."

He smiled softly again as he brought his hands up to her cheeks. It was tempting to just take Aurora to the town on the other side of the tracks, but that wasn't going to achieve anything. "Lucy, baby, I'm going with you. Even back to that goddamn hellhole, which is really what it is, no matter how much it hurts me, okay?"

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

He nodded. "Positive. I need to… I need to face my demons, you know? I think I need to do this," Bickslow admitted, though it was more to himself than anything. He felt as if he needed to go and do that right then – face it all head on once again to finally move on like he'd never really been able to do. And he felt as if that was possible for once. "Besides, anyone who knew me as a kid would've forgotten me by now. It's been nearly twenty-two for everyone else years since I left, after all… And even then, as long as I have you and Aurora by my side, I'll be okay, because you two and can get me through everything."

And they did. They got him through the worst of it. And when two people that he'd thought would be gone by then had somehow recognised him, his own family that held him together were still there.

But going through there had truly been what he'd needed. It had hurt, and he'd hated every second of it, but it had helped, because he'd learned that the two people that he'd wished were his actual parents on more than one occasion in his life had recognised him, and that they'd never blamed him for their son's death. Dallas' parents were who he'd worried about hating him the most all those years, because where everyone else that he'd ever known besides Caspian had blamed him, his best friend's parents hadn't – not even for a second.

He'd been able to forgive himself for something he hadn't even done because of them, and when he visited his own parents' graves (his father's just a little reluctantly) and showed Lucy and Aurora the house he'd grown up in, still right next to where Dallas had once lived, Bickslow had almost felt as if he was finally able to really leave all of that behind, and that was a feeling that had surprised him.

But it was one he loved.

* * *

"Well, you don't really have a fever, so I guess that's a good thing," Bickslow mumbled as he brought his hand back down from Lucy's forehead. "At least you're slightly better than Aurora is right now…"

"How's her fever?" Lucy yawned, pulling the duvet up a little higher to her ears.

"Still not too bad. She'll probably get better in the next day or two."

"That's good…"

"Yup." He stood up from the bed and stretched his arms out in front of him, and sighed when it looked back down to Lucy. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay? Aurora already had her cuddles for the day and she's asleep now anyway."

She rolled her eyes, and if she had the energy right then to throw a pillow at him, she would have. "No, just go," she laughed weakly. "I don't want to make you sick. If I want cuddles, I'll come find you later."

"Fine… But do you want anything? I'm making chicken soup since Aurora wanted some—"

"You mean she actually _asked_ for soup? We're talking about the same kid here, right?"

"She actually asked for chicken soup," he repeated. Bickslow had been utterly shocked when his six-year-old had asked for some chicken soup for lunch that day, because every time they'd tried to get her to just try a tiny bit of any kind of soup, she'd claimed she would rather go hungry. But suddenly, she wanted chicken soup. Bickslow was just a little proud.

"Wow…"

"Mm-hmm."

"But no, thank you," Lucy continued when she seemed to quickly get over her shock of her daughter wanting soup. "I just want to get some rest. I might try some soup later, though."

Bickslow nodded and switched off the lamp beside Lucy, then turned for the bedroom door. "Alright then. I'll come check in on you later then," he said softly, and closed the door gently behind him. He couldn't help but peek into Aurora's room on his way back down the hall, and he smiled when he saw her all tucked up in her bed with the giant pink ladybug held tightly to her and with the babies nestled around her on the mattress.

Honestly, when his daughter and wife – or _fiancée_ , technically, still – were both sick, he loved how quiet the house was. It was clean for a change, too, but that was really only because Aurora had spent most of her time in bed or on the lounge watching movies with him over the last two days, and Lucy had spent all of the day before in bed and so she hadn't been tossing countless crumpled up paper balls to their living room floor (or at him). Life was great, considering all things.

It was a miracle to Bickslow that he hadn't gotten sick yet himself. It was the end of winter, and Aurora had only turned six the week before, yet he was the only one who hadn't gotten sick. Lucy had, and Aurora had, but he hadn't. It was fabulous. For the first time, Bickslow hadn't gotten his yearly dose of the flu.

He was pretty sure he was jinxing himself by enjoying it too much, though.

The next week, however, saw Bickslow still without any kind of cold or flu or sickness, and having officially entered spring, he assumed he had only made it out alive… And slightly less germy than usual. Aurora had gotten better by then, which meant she could go back to being the blue-haired, brown-eyed ball of sunshine she usually was.

Lucy, on the other hand… Well, she was still a little under the weather, though she hadn't been sick enough where she'd spent that entire week in bed. Most of it, but not all of it. There'd been lots of cuddles on the lounge with everyone, though, and that was always nice.

It was only when Lucy stayed in that state of 'kinda feel like throwing up, kinda feel like taking a nap, but I kinda feel like eating choc-mint ice cream and watching movies all day, too,' (her words, not his) for longer than she probably should have, that Bickslow realised something: that when she'd been pregnant with Aurora, she'd gotten really bad, really early.

Lucy had eventually decided to admit that she wanted to have another baby. Though, it had only come after she'd found Aquarius' key at the end of autumn the previous year, which she'd been so ecstatic about because she'd been looking for it for so long, and she'd loved that Bickslow and Aurora had been with her then when she'd found it. She'd been too busy giggling and squealing with Aurora to care too much about how Aquarius had decided to sweep the Seith mage away in a mini-tsunami because he'd been stupid enough to say _'so were you always this much of a bitch, or are you just bitter from being stuck in the spirit world for so long?'_

Aurora had thought it was funny seeing her father get taken away by the wave, though.

But Lucy had still wanted to have another baby, and she had been thinking about it a lot before she'd finally found Aquarius' key. She'd just wanted to wait a little while, and if possible, wait until _after_ she'd found her key. Of course, part of her had thought that maybe she really wouldn't ever get Aquarius back because her key could've honestly been anywhere…

But she had. And she'd been so, so glad and relieved once she'd had her back.

Lucy knew she'd probably get sick again too if she had another baby, and as much as it had sucked the first time, she'd do it again because it was worth it in the end. Lucy had never quite been able to figure out why Bickslow wanted a second child, considering he hadn't exactly wanted Aurora until she'd been born, but he'd never really been able to give her an answer as to why he wanted another, either. Even he wasn't precisely sure why he wanted another, but he had for a really long time, and he'd seemed to realise that the older Aurora got, the more he wanted another baby because Aurora really wasn't little anymore – he'd sulked the night she'd started calling him 'Dad'.

So… With them both wanting to have another baby, and with Aquarius back with Lucy where she'd always belonged and with them all home and happy, they'd started trying to make their family grow a little more. Though, it wasn't like they were going out of their way to try and make it happen, but they weren't trying to stop it from happening, either.

And that was what Bickslow was remembering right then (though it wasn't exactly like he'd forgotten, oh no). So he was leaving Aurora at the dining table where she was working her way through some maths worksheets with the babies helping her (honestly, he felt useless sometimes when the babies were involved), and then he was rushing down the hall to their bedroom and then to their bathroom where he figured Lucy actually was. She was, of course, though Bickslow was only finding her putting her toothbrush and toothpaste back in the cup next to the sink.

"Before you even ask," she began suddenly, and before Bickslow really could open his mouth to even speak. "The answer is yes."

"Wait… Like, _yes_ yes? As in…"

"Yes, as in _yes_ , and as in I'm not letting you touch the stick I just peed on because that's weird and gross."

"So that's like, a definite, positive yes, though, right?" Bickslow asked as he followed her out of the bathroom.

"Yes, it is. Well, probably," she said for some clarification. "Now can we please stop saying—" But she stopped herself short just because she had to let out a surprised shriek when Bickslow suddenly lifted her off the ground to throw her down onto the bed. The mattress was soft, sure, but she couldn't help but groan quietly because she already felt like death all over again, and if anything, earlier than she had with Aurora, which kinda sucked.

Bickslow was grinning as he hovered over her, but really, how could he not be? He'd only been waiting for that for five years… "Yes?"

"If you say yes one more time, I'm going to kick you."

The funny thing was that he really didn't doubt her, so he only asked instead, "So are we gonna have another baby?" Lucy only nodded, just because she wasn't going to say _yes_ again, and then Bickslow was leaning down to wrap his arms around her again and completely shower her with affection, because really, what else was he going to do? "Really?!"

He was like an over-excited six-year-old (she would know, she had one) and Lucy couldn't help but find his excitement contagious. "Mm-hmm."

"When? Like… Do you know how far you are?"

"Five weeks, I think, so… Towards the end of the year, I guess."

"Oh, well, that's a lot better than last time," he chuckled. At least she wouldn't have a doctor yelling at her for being irresponsible that time, because five was much more reasonable than ten.

But they'd have another baby by the end of the year and they'd be there for the holidays, and Bickslow was _so_ looking forward to that now. He loved the holidays anyway, just because they happened to coincide with their anniversary, and even though it was still the start of the year, Bickslow really couldn't wait until it was winter again, because it would mean he'd spent the best eight years of his life to date with his favourite person (well, one of his favourites, because he suddenly had two more favourites) on the planet, and he'd have already gotten two perfect children in those eight years, too.

"Can I look?"

Lucy blinked. "Huh? What do you mean _look?"_

"Like, you know, at its soul."

"Oh! Uh… Yeah, if you must," she laughed nervously. Honestly, she wasn't quite sure what she'd been thinking of before, but that made much more sense. Though whether or not Bickslow would be able to see anything, she didn't know. Stretching out and rolling her eyes when Bickslow moved down and pushed her pyjama top up so it was out of the way, not that it really was, she added quietly, "But, you know… If you _can_ see it now, I don't want to know if it's a boy or a girl yet."

"No?" Lucy shook her head, and Bickslow shrugged. He could keep it a secret… Maybe. Probably. "Alright then," he shrugged. And it wasn't as bright as Aurora's had been when he'd first seen hers, but it was there and just starting to form and he was just able to make out the colour radiating from the very centre.

And when he moved back up after lightly kissing her stomach right above where the tiny little soul was and wrapped his arm around her, he only kissed her cheek and whispered, "I love you, Cosplayer." And then, they just enjoyed the silence and each other's company for a little while, because with Aurora, they really didn't make enough time for each other, but that was fine.

It was just moments like that they needed every now and then, and once they had baby number two there, those moments would be even harder to come by, but that was still okay. Even just the _quiet_ moments would be hard to come by, because there'd be a baby crying half the time, and then Aurora will probably be crying because she won't be getting all the attention… And then Lucy will probably be crying, too, because she'd be sleep deprived like he was.

Bickslow did wonder how Aurora would feel about having a baby brother, though. He liked to think that she'd be okay with it, though really, he was expecting a few tantrums.

"You know…" Lucy said suddenly with her head still buried against Bickslow chest, their legs intertwined and arms around each other on the middle of the bed. "I feel like we should probably get married before this one gets here."

"That sounds like a brilliant idea."

* * *

And so they were finally married a month later after a nearly seven-year engagement. There'd been a few times over the years where they'd honestly forgotten that they'd never actually tied the knot which seemed to entertain their friends and the rest of the guild to no end whenever they brought it up, though really, the only reason they hadn't gotten married until then was because they hadn't really _needed_ to.

They'd never had any intentions of getting married any time soon when they'd first gotten engaged, and then Aurora had come so they'd had to push back the idea of a wedding regardless, because their child came before them getting married. But they'd been happy with where they were, too. They'd always just said they'd get around to it one day because they weren't in a rush.

But then it had been about searching for Aquarius' key, and there hadn't been time for them to get married because they spent more time away from Magnolia than they did actually at home. It hadn't been easy, but they all stuck with it because they were a family and they stuck together, and being able to travel all over the country and the continent had been one of the best things they'd ever done because they'd been able to show Aurora the world beyond the home she knew, and they'd been able to create so many new memories.

And once they'd gotten back, it had been more about readjusting to everything again, because even when they'd always had to take breaks between adventuring because they'd need to take jobs to pay their rent and their bills and just be able to afford being able to travel everywhere with Lucy, they'd spent a long time constantly leaving and coming back home, and Lucy especially had. But they hadn't had to do that once Lucy had found Aquarius' key. They hadn't had to travel the world, they hadn't had to leave all of their friends and the rest of their family behind for weeks at a time. Getting back home had been about relaxing.

But… They'd still never completely forgotten that they still needed to get married. They'd always know, even when it slipped their minds occasionally, but they'd just never been in a rush to do so.

Finding out they were having another baby changed that, though. They'd ultimately put it off for Aurora when she had been born, and then again for Aquarius, and then again just so they could settle back into their lives at home. But they weren't going to put it off again, because there was just no better time to finally get married, because everything was feeling utterly perfect yet again.

It had been relatively small by Fairy Tail's standards, just because they hadn't wanted something grand or extravagant. They'd just wanted their exuberant guild family there to share it with them. If anything, it had been planned more for the guild than it was them, because as happy as they were about it, Lucy had known she wouldn't be in the mood to do much on the actual day. She'd hoped otherwise, and she'd really, _really_ wished that she wouldn't have been feeling absolutely terrible, but she had.

She didn't let that stop her, though. Never in a million years. Because when she sat there in the guild that evening (and on Bickslow's lap, no less) and just watched everyone enjoy themselves and smiled at Matt dancing with Aurora (or trying to, really), she was happy. And happy was really just putting it lightly, but that was what she was.

She didn't need to dance with Bickslow, and she most definitely did not want to, either, to be happy. She could sit there and watch everyone else and say that she was more than glad with how everything had turned out. She wouldn't have changed anything in the world for where she was right then, and she knew Bickslow wouldn't, either.

She had Aquarius back, and she had the most wonderful husband in the world (and she was _so_ glad that she could finally call Bickslow that, even though she'd kind of been calling him that for the last two years), the brightest daughter she ever could have wished for, and then another baby on the way, and even the rest of the guild, too. She had absolutely everything she wanted, and to her, it was all perfect.

Absolutely every single thing that had got her there, she was glad had happened, too. Even when things had been hard, and even when Lucy had thought she would never be able to reach that point in her life, she had. She'd gotten over every single obstacle that had come up in those last seven-and-a-half years, but she hadn't done it alone. She'd had Bickslow helping her all that time, and she knew that she wouldn't even be there if it weren't for him.

He'd been there at her lowest of lows, to help her leave the darkness behind her and keep it from swallowing her whole ever again. He'd made her feel a little less alone and been the friend she'd needed, and he'd been there to piece her soul back together, piece by tiny little piece and he'd made her whole again when she'd been broken.

He'd been there when she'd been sick, and been her doctor in shining armour.

He'd been there just listen to her when she'd needed to talk, too. Even when things had gotten hard again and she'd been scared, he'd still stayed and been there for her and with her.

But even when _Bickslow_ had been scared, he'd still never left. Lucy was proud of what Bickslow had achieved in those seven-and-a-half years – she was more proud of him than she was herself or even Aurora (though she never said that out loud).

He'd let her in when he hadn't let anyone else in. He'd made himself feel vulnerable, and he'd risked everything he'd known at one point in his life for her, just because he hadn't wanted to lose her.

He'd made himself uncomfortable time and time again and put himself through more than she had ever expected or even _asked_ him to, all for her.

He'd trusted her in a way that he hadn't trusted anyone else and had let her see just how broken _he_ was beneath every single wall he'd ever put up.

But he'd let Lucy help him, and he'd worked through every single thing that had been difficult or just made him want to curl up in a ball and hide for the next eternity behind his walls, just because he'd always wanted to be the kind of person that _didn't_ need to hide. He'd just wanted to be someone who Lucy could actually be proud of being with by his standards, and he'd just wanted to be someone who was actually comfortable in their own skin, which was something he'd never really been.

He was now, though. He didn't have his walls anymore, and he didn't have the person that he let the guild see, and then have that side of him that only Lucy and Caspian knew. He was just Bickslow. And it had taken him a long time to get to that point, but that was something Bickslow had always known. How long didn't matter, though. It was that he had at all, and he didn't think he would've been able to unless he'd faced each of his fears and every demon from his past head on.

And Lucy still couldn't be prouder, because she got to call that person her husband and the father of her children, which really, might be the best part of all. He'd gone from being completely terrified of having even _one_ because he hadn't wanted them to be even anything remotely close to what he was like, to wanting another and being the most supportive of having their daughter learn about her magic.

She tore her eyes away from Aurora and Matt still sort of dancing in the middle of whatever the hell everyone else was doing (it wasn't dancing, that was for sure), and lifted her head from where it had been resting on Bickslow's shoulder and smiled up at him. "I know I've said this a million-and-one times before, but thank you for loving me," she whispered tenderly.

"It's my pleasure, really."

"I know, but I mean before," she said. "You know, because if you hadn't, you wouldn't have noticed me or come to my apartment all those years ago, and then I wouldn't have wanted to come talk to you at like three in the morning."

"Well, it was really more crying than actual talking if memory serves me correctly..."

Lucy rolled her eyes as she said, "Okay, fine, but _still_ … Maybe we wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't cared about me back then."

"We could've," Bickslow said, but then the raised eyebrow Lucy was giving him only had him tilting his head slightly and the corner of his mouth curling up into a smirk. "Yeah, probably not, actually," he admitted a second later. "Not unless I decided to man-up and just ask you out, which is as unlikely as you actually saying yes if I _did_ do it."

"You do realise you never actually asked me out, right?"

His brow creased as he stared at his slightly amused wife sitting sideways on his lap. "Really?"

"Nope," she giggled. "We didn't have our first actual date until after Christmas and I was already so head over heels in love with you by then anyway."

"Huh… Well, maybe it was for the best, y'know? I mean, we're still here now." Sure, he was trying to defend himself because he felt just a little bad about never really having had the change to ask her to go on a date with him before they'd gotten together in the first place, but he knew it didn't really matter all that much in the long run. "And it's not like we took the most typical of paths getting here…"

"No? Fall in love, be oblivious morons about it before eventually getting together, get knocked up, engaged, knocked up again, _then_ married – I thought that was the norm these days."

"You are such a dork sometimes it's unbelievable."

She leaned in to kiss his cheek, then whispered by his ear, "But this dork is your wife now and you totally love it."

"I do. I really love it," he said, a slightly surprised laugh slipping past his lips. "But I still mean it. We're here now, and that's what matters."

"I know," she whispered again.

Aurora was suddenly skipping over to them then, apparently leaving Matt to actually dance with Wendy (which Bickslow had to admit he'd grown less bitter about once they'd gotten engaged the year before, though the Dragons still hated him a little), and then the six-year-old was climbing up onto Lucy's lap and making herself as comfortable as she could be. Bickslow only groaned when she did and couldn't help but roll his eyes. "There's too many people sitting on me right now," he groaned.

"Oh, don't be dramatic," Lucy laughed. "There's only two of us, and I am _not_ that fat, thank you very much. Well, yet…" She'd had to choose her dress to not make it glaringly obvious they were having another baby, even though half of the guild had already found out because she really hadn't been able to keep it that hidden. But that was okay. The important thing was that she'd been able to tell them all themselves (well, not Cobra, but Cobra knew everything, somehow, and it honestly worried Lucy sometimes, and the guy wasn't even a part of their guild).

"Three," Aurora said.

"Hm?"

"There's three people sitting on Daddy."

Bickslow could probably freak out (or cry) then because she'd reverted back to 'Daddy', which he really did love because Aurora was still his baby even though she was six-and-a-half (ish). But he didn't. He instead just let his grin grow wider. "That's right, Aurora. There _are_ three people sitting on me!" The kid knew how to count, apparently unlike Lucy. "My arms really aren't long enough to hug you all, though. Sorry."

Lucy rolled her eyes once again. Okay, fine, she'd let Bickslow have that one, but only because Aurora had brought it up. But then Lucy was suddenly sitting up and looking just a little bit too excited about something, and Bickslow couldn't help but raise his eyebrow at her and turn his attention away from the necklace he'd only just noticed his daughter was wearing, just because it happened to be the same one he'd given Lucy seven-and-half years earlier. Though, he seemed to know why Aurora was now the proud owner of the former water spirit's key on the golden chain, and he really did love it.

"So, I was thinking…" Lucy began slowly, looking between both Bickslow and Aurora. "I know it's probably too early to talk about this, but… _If_ we have a boy, what do you think of naming him Dallas?"

Bickslow just stared at the blonde in stunned silence for a moment. Of all the things for Lucy to have said right then, that might have been the absolute last one he'd expected. But maybe that was made Bickslow love it so much, because he really hadn't expected it in the slightest.

"And I know we are actually having a boy, by the way, so you can tell me if you like it or not," she added quietly when Bickslow seemed just a little hesitant to say anything. "Aurora told me before." Well, she'd tickled it out of her because she'd really wanted to know without asking Bickslow and she knew Bickslow had told their daughter, but it had only led to lots of squealing in their living room because Aurora was apparently too excited to have a baby brother.

He wasn't even mad that Aurora had told her. He couldn't have been mad, or annoyed, or even just a little frustrated in that moment, even he'd tried to be. Because right then, he was feeling like he was falling just that little bit more in love with Lucy, like he did each time he saw her, even.

He could barely even get his voice above a whisper when he finally nodded and said with tears beginning to well up in his eyes, "I think that's perfect for him."

And in that moment, Bickslow was the happiest he'd been in his entire life. Everything was so completely perfect because everything was right again, and even when he hadn't ever thought he'd be able to live such a perfect life, he was more than glad he was. In just eight short years, so much had happened, and even when some of it had been bad, he wouldn't change any of it. None of it. Because what he had then was _more_ than he'd ever thought he deserved, and all of those horrible things that _had_ ever happened in his thirty years on that planet, they were just memories now. That was all they'd ever be.

And even if that perfect moment didn't last forever and he found himself having to get through the hard times yet again, he'd be okay. He'd learned to accept and move on over the years, and that the really, really great times were always just around the corner. And Bickslow knew that they would always be there, too, no matter what, and he would always be able to get back to them. Nothing in the world could stop him from being happy, because there wasn't anything that scared him anymore, not when he had people like Lucy and Aurora and _Dallas_ in his life to keep him grounded and feeling together.

Because when he had Lucy and his family, everything always worked out in the end.

* * *

 _Ahh, we made it! 190-odd thousand words, seventeen chapters, a prologue and an epilogue, random author's notes that barely anyone reads later, we are **done**. And, honestly, I found myself getting a little teary finishing this up, but **I'm** also super happy with it. I do have to admit that this didn't turn out exactly how I'd planned (not just this chapter, but some parts in the story, too), but... I'm okay with that. I never go into stories with complete plans, usually just general ideas of what I want to have in them, and the rest I just make up as I go... This was no different, of course. But I'm still glad with how it turned out._

 _To everyone who has followed, favourited, reviewed, and even **read** this, especially from when it was started back in November for BixLu week, **THANK YOU SO MUCH.**_

 _If you enjoyed this story, I'm going to tell you I love you, and I really just want you to deal with it because I'm really not affectionate at all but I'm sending pixel hugs to each and everyone one of you._

 _I'm kinda hoping I gave this story the epilogue it deserved - I don't think I did, but I still tried. There were things I wanted to have in it, and I rewrote so many parts of this too many times, but this... I'm okay with. So I do hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it._

 _\- April_

 _(P.S - How the fuck do you write children?! No, seriously... I have no idea, and half of my BixLu stories that aren't even written yet involve young children... What have I gotten myself into...)_


End file.
